BACKTRACE

US, 2018, 92 minutes, Colour.
Sylvester Stallone, Matthew Modine, Ryan Guzman, Meadow Williams, Christopher Mc Donald, Colin Egglesfield, Lydia Hull.
Directed by Brian A.Miller.

This action film was released straight to video – a typical enough action film for the action audience. However, if anyone wanted to see an almost complete selection of negative reviews of the film, bloggers on the IMDb were extremely condemnatory.

Sylvester Stallone has top billing although he has a supporting role, a detective on the case for seven years, clashing and cooperating with the FBI, eventually in on the final action. He relies on his screen presence rather than a performance.

Much more telling is the presence of Matthew Modine, seen first after a bank robbery with his accomplices, confronting other partners who demand more money, guns pulled and a great deal of shooting. Audiences are not sure who Modine is and, after he is wounded in the woods, he suffers from amnesia and is put in prison. The action takes up seven years later when a young man in the prison and one of the doctors there, in collaboration with a security guard, smuggle him out of the institution so that they can inject him with chemicals and that he can backtrace his memories.

While they do this, action is complicated because of the escape, Stallone getting back in on the action, the FBI, especially in the form of Christopher Mc Donald, participating more strongly – with a twist that he was in on the original robbery situation in the past, killing some of his accomplices.

While there is a great deal of shooting in the woods early in the film, continual hails of bullets, this is repeated in a warehouse at the end, even more bullets.

The detective is sympathetic when Modine offers the money and Stallone allows him to go off with the young man and the doctor – and they are seen having drinks at the beginning of their freedom.

More of a time-passer for those who like action films – and, according to the bloggers, many of them did not.