Catchfire

Plot synopsis:
Conceptual artist Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) creates electronic pieces that flash evocative statements, and her work has begun to attract major media attention.
Driving home one night, Anne suffers a blowout on a deserted road and, while looking for help, witnesses a mafia hit supervised by Leo Carelli (Joe Pesci). Leo spots Anne, but she escapes and goes to the police.
They offer her a place in the federal witness protection program, but mob boss Lino Avoca (Vincent Price), Carelli's boss, sends top-of-the-line hitman Milo (Dennis Hopper) and his partner Pinella (John Turturro) to silence her. Pinella kills her boyfriend Bob (Charlie Sheen), but she escapes.
Months pass; Anne has severed all ties with her past and re-established herself in Seattle as an advertising copywriter. Milo, who never gives up, recognizes the tagline of a lipstick ad as one of Anne's catchphrases, and tracks her down.
She flees again, to New Mexico, and he finds her again. But this time he offers her a deal: he'll let her live, if she'll do anything and everything he asks.
Milo's interest in Anne, it turns out, is more than professional, but not exactly what she thinks. He doesn't want her to be his sex slave, though sex is part of the equation.
A man obsessed, Milo has fallen in love with Anne. And he has no idea how to cope with the unfamiliar emotion. Astonishingly, after a rocky start, Anne realizes that she has also fallen for him.
By failing to kill Anne as he was hired to do, Milo has marked himself for death, and the two flee together to an isolated farm that Milo owns.
Avoca's men track them there, and they realize that in order to be free, they must return and confront their pursuers. The plan that they concoct works, leaving Avoca, Carelli, and their men dead.
Anne and Milo escape together to a new life.

Tags: cult, murder

Review:
Despite the shameless overacting by almost the entire cast, and, despite the "chop shop" editing of the DVD, and, despite the two famous actors (Charlie Sheen, Joe Pesci) who yanked their names from the credits, and, despite the randomness and somewhat unbelievability of the script, and, despite the movie's tendency to vacillate wildly between genuine tension, dark humor, titillating nudity, and cartoonish situations, in spite of all these potential faults, "Backtrack" is very watchable.
Dennis Hopper's go-for-broke-on-a-slim-budget black comedy about a hit-man falling for his target, a strange but alluring young woman who makes pop art out of neon signs.
I enjoyed bits of "Backtrack" (see that, not the butchered European print entitled "Catchfire") such as the gorgeous theater in New Mexico where Jodie Foster hides out or the funny scene where she's pacing around in the bathroom, trying to decide how far she should go with her pervy kidnapper.
These two are so powerful that they make Fred Ward look like a character actor.This is a violent movie where the violence never seems to  override the comedy/relationship/slice of life issues that the film portrays.
A very strange film with a sterling cast.Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) was in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed a murder.
On the mob side, we have the boss, Vincent Price; John Turturro (Barton Fink, "Monk"); Tony Sirico ("The Sopranos"); and Joe Pesci (Goodfellas, Raging Bull).Cameos by Bob Dylan, Charlie Sheen, and Catherine Keener added up to a great cast.
Too bad the movie wasn't as good as the people in it.Dennis Hopper (Hoosiers, Easy Rider), who also produced and directed the movie, played Milo, a hit man hired by the mob to catch the girl.
We get a good look at Jodie's Fosters not once, but twice in the most skintastic performance of her career.
Oh, filmmakers just love to make evil look good.Who better to play a twisted wacko than Dennis Hopper?
Check this out: Hopper, Foster, Joe Pecsi, Fred Ward, Dean Stockwell, Vincent Price, John Turturro and Charlie Sheen.
AND some understated humor, would-ya-believe romance and kindness to animals, and a happy ending of sorts.Dennis Hopper took his name off the cut version, which apparently omits, among others, parts of scenes featuring Jodie Foster's nudity.
This is the version I saw, and even thus cut I give the film a 7.The plot is straightforward: a hitman (Dennis Hopper) hired to kill a woman (Jodie Foster) who witnessed a mob murder gives her the option of staying alive and being "his." Then, since he defaulted on his assignment, they must flee mob reprisal.My relatively high rating is based on Hopper's direction and on the acting, principally of the two main stars.
Dennis Hopper's original cut of the film was three hours, which is more akin to a move out of Erich von Stroheim; maybe it is genius in its full form, but perhaps Hopper would have been better just taking what is a half-bitter, half-sweet neo-noir with pitch black comedy and crazy romance as a shorter feature.
To give Hopper his credit a lot of this is due to a choppy rhythm; sometimes there's a spectacular cut (i.e. when he jumps from a rooftop it cuts right away to him opening a drawer in a room), and sometimes it really does feel like a little extra detail or moment is excised in favor of keeping the plot going.It's not a bad plot either, if somewhat typical in the film noir tradition: a woman has one of those freak chance of occurrences on a road as her tires go flat on a highway, and walking along the side of the road she sees in a wasteland a mob hit.
The mobsters see her, she escapes in time, goes to the cops, and then when the mob comes by and kills her boyfriend she goes on the run - not taking into account a strange, soulful hit-man is on her trail, more as a stalker than a killer, leading to a very challenging moment halfway where the gears shift in tone.The first half is fairly fun as a chase movie and has some surprises, mostly in cameos that had me smile (Vincent Price) and shaking my head and laughing like I was having a hallucination (Bob Dylan), with Hopper creating what looks to be another in a line of classic psychos (he has the skill of a puzzle-solver following Foster's trail, and sometimes plays the saxophone to relax).
When he finally tracks her down, however, there's a possibly great scene: Hopper, with a tie around her neck and handcuffs on her hands, gives Foster a choice, either die right now or be "mine" so that she would be under his total control.
There's a sort of absurdity here that maybe echoes Bunuel; it's kind of sadistically dangerous, and at the same time starts to make less sense even as it ratchets up some memorable, baroque images (the burning figure at night right before Hopper goes into Foster's room to take her sort of hostage).
The acting isn't bad either, but again the sense of rhythm is off, and it's hard to look past that as the film is what it is and has to be seen like that.As a curiosity it's surely a must-see - it's got a who's who of stars and character actors, from Charlie Sheen to Price to Joe Pesci to Catherine Keener to Jon Tuturro to Paulie from the Sopranos - though it's hard to exactly call it a very "good" movie.
Splendid, offbeat film that blurs the line between the refined arty types (Foster's Anne Benton), and lowlifes (Hopper, Pesci).
Exceptional cinematography and editing, plus a neat script, make this film appear to be a template for Tarantino, as we sort of define the term "opposites attract" with this film!Hopper, Pesci, Price, and Turturro all give terrific performances, but Foster steals the flick in an extremely uncharacteristic performance.
With huge screen personas such as Dennis Hopper and Jodie Foster it really makes this film fun to watch.
Jodie Foster's character had potential which was left largely untouched, many times she edged on being complex, but unfortunately most avenues went unexplored.
Dennis Hopper's BACKTRACK (Catchfire) had everything going for it- good plot potential and great cast.
I bought the set- up, yet came away feeling this film was the result of Hopper making a bar bet that he could bed Jodie Foster and get paid to party with his friends in the arty enclaves of New Mexico, then throwing together this production to win the bet.The high point for me was Bob Dylan's cameo as a chain saw wielding deconstructionist (maybe a metaphor for the whole film) and his barely intelligible dialog: "(mumble, mumble), Laddy John Dill, (mumble, mumble)..."Years later I ran into Dill at an art school reunion and it provided the perfect icebreaker..."Hey man, I just saw a horrible film where Bob Dylan dropped your name.
Dennis Hopper was a major collector of modern art and it shows in this film,its worth watching for the abstract art influences.
A young woman, Jodie Foster, is witnessing a mafia murder, reports the killing to the local police, and becomes herself a hit target by the mob operatives.
Then, as a parody of the Stockholm Syndrome that defines a case when an abducted hostage begins to like and cooperate with the kidnapper, Jodie Foster falls for her abductor too, make love, and both prepare for a getaway.Denis Hopper, the actor, tries to align himself with the creative ambitions of Dennis Hopper, the director.
The result is disappointing, and fails to keep pace with the artistic level of a great performer as Dennis Hopper is.
The film is saved to some extent by the performance of Jodie Foster who is not at her best, but still shines with her talent, beauty and gift.
Of historical interest is the short appearance of Vincent Price, and, in a small act, of Charlie Sawn known from his great part in "Wall Street".If you decide to spend the 116 minutes to see the film, it is not a complete loss; this movie offers easy entertainment, but we would expect much more from the director of "Easy Rider", and the actress who gave us the character of Sarah Tobias in "The Accused"..
And then there is Jodie Foster, who I'm not usually very fond of watching and the main man himself.
I like the story and the acting is very good, but it isn't a very convincing film.
I'm still puzzled by that.Although Jodie Fosters acting is great it isn't convincing me why Anne (Foster) is falling for her own killer.
Than there are the eccentricities that ended up embarrassing to watch because Dennis Hopper can do a better job at it than he does here.
I don't know.The hostage/kidnapper relationship is not believable, even if it is a common psychological phenomenon in real life.Worst of all, this film features a scene where Hopper and Foster ride a boat under the Fremont Bridge (a bridge in Seattle) which means that traffic had to stop so that the bridge could open.
Trailed by the police, who need her testimony, and a hit-man (Hopper) hired by the Mafia, she goes to Mexico, where eventually she meets the hit man, who has become infatuated after studying her art and life to prepare for the hit.Cast of characters in walk ons can't save this horribly flawed film.
Jody Foster is way too muscular to be parading around half naked through much of the movie and she isn't really good at acting scared either.
The basic plot had great potential, and some of the film was really good.
And it's quite amusing how often and quickly these films throw the word 'love' around (about as often as they find excuses for full frontal shots...not that seeing Jodie Foster nude in the shower isn't appealing, but when nudity is unnecessary it kind of ruins the moment;)And what was with that *horrible* accent Dennis Hopper failed to pull off?
In the end, it's amusing to watch for the classic actors (not often one gets to see Vincent Price as a mob boss;), great sets (and the Anne Benton art was really cool!), gorgeous shots, not to mention Hopper's antics (and the same pleasure-filled hyper-ventilation sounds he used in the sex scenes in Blue Velvet;)Look for cameos by Charlie Sheen and Bob Dylan...and does Joe Pesci ever play anything else but a trigger happy mob goon??
Featuring some rare Jodie Foster nude scenes, this flick entertained and demonstrated a new side to Hopper.
I watched this movie recently mainly because I am a Huge fan of Jodie Foster's.
The story itself may have been somewhat believable if someone like Mel Gibson had played the role of the hit-man.
I did think that Jodie looked great throughout the movie, which was probably the only reason I watched the entire thing.
Clearly, something was badly amiss from the beginning.I'm amazed at the positive comments for the movie and for Jodie Foster's performance.
I must have been watching a different movie since Ms Foster (usually a personal favorite) seemed to be totally disinterested.In one of his first scenes with Foster, Fred Ward looks as though he, also, is distracted by her lack of energy and he struggles to deliver his own lines with any enthusiasm.
By the time he's called upon to take part in a supposedly desperate search for runaway Foster, Ward also seems to have become embarrassingly half-hearted about the project.In my opinion, Dennis Hopper has always been a uni-dimensional performer, so I wasn't expecting much from him ...
All the time you are waiting for something interesting to happen, but no, you are still watching the same dull, uninspiring and superficial cliché of a movie with a very bad soundtrack.
A hit man with his quirks, a girl who's playing hard to get, mob guys acting tough and incapable cops, yawn...I'd recommend not to watch Backtrack.
I doubt it.Jodie Foster and Dennis Hopper had no on screen chemistry what so ever.
Even Jodie Foster's nude scenes could not save this film.
With Dennis Hopper, Jodie Foster, John Turturro, and Dean Stockwell, this film should have been better.
Milo (Dennis Hopper) three "high powered" 286 processor computers, and Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) "high tech" LED signs really makes this movie seem more dated than it actually is.I don't get me wrong.
Hopper and Foster ARE good actors here, as well as some other persons.
Best thing about movie is the surprise of the uncredited cameos by Joe Pesci, Charlie Sheen and Bob Dylan.
For one I cannot fathom sitting through another 90 minutes of this eye-vomit, but on the other hand it seems that an absolutely insane editing decision renders the viewing experience incomprehensible.The upshot of that is as always no-one wins.Consider this: Anne (Jodie Foster) is an avant-garde artiste who witnesses a murder within approximately 27 seconds of entering a 'bad neighbourhood'.This moment of incredibly inopportune timing puts both mob and the FBI on her trail after she refuses to testify and shoots through to pursue a lifetime on the run in disguise.Dennis Hopper plays Milo, the elite hit-man hired by the mob to eliminate Anne and put an end to this nonsense, only Milo is apparently entranced by Anne's artwork and almost instantly changes from a cold blooded hit-man into a creepy stalker-rapist.Now. While all this is indeed mostly reprehensible it is not yet implausible.
But wait there's more (I would ordinarily warn of Spoilers to a 20 year old film here, but they are blabbed all over the back of the DVD cover so I don't feel so bad.) After Milo kidnaps Anne, threatens her life, forces her to don sexy (a word that should never appear in the same sentence as Jodie Foster) lingerie and rapes her – her words – we cut abruptly to a scene apparently only a short while later where they are both very much in genuine love.Wait.
Unfortunately for me I didn't take that option and was still sitting glassy eyed when the credits rolled The only other thing worth mentioning is that this stain of a film actually boasts a top-notch cast of actors punching well below their weight; Fred Ward, Joe Pesci, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell, Catherine Keener and Charlie Sheen all wasted parts of their lives appearing in it.As for the 'headliners' Jodie Foster was always miscast in a role that demanded 'sexy', and Dennis Hopper over-acts to sh*t in this film.
Jodie Foster was ever pleasant to look at but even her talent couldn't bring the stillborn dialogue and maimed story to life.
The final section of the movie, the escape from the mob in a helicopter had me looking at my watch but to be honest I'd been doing that from about ten minutes in.
It's too strange to be action, too sleazy to be romance, and just too sinister to be a comedy.It's almost as if Hopper is wanting to channel David Lynch, but doesn't have a clue.Saying that, it's never boring, Foster and Pesci are wonderful, and it's got one of the most abrupt endings ever.Not good, but worth watching..
Since Dennis Hopper died yesterday, I feel honour bound to visit his filmography.This is one of those films which left an impression, mainly because of the absolute bizarreness of the plot.A hit-man (Hopper, cast according to type), for no apparent reason, falls in love with his target (Jodie Foster, after The Accused, before Silence Of The Lambs).
So many weird and disastrous things about this movie-  That Foster's character plays an artist who's work is so clearly modeled on Jenny Holzer's only to read in the credits that the art was actually created for the film...
There's also what looks like actress Jodie Foster, as artist Ann Benton, first adult nude scene in the movie that will keep the men in the audience interested.
What in fact happens is that Milo falls head over heels for Ann and in no time at all joins her on the lamb from the mob with him now targeted for execution, by Mr. Avoca, together his lover Ann Benton!***SPOILER*** The movie has a number of both car and helicopter chase scenes with both Milo and Ann making monkeys out of the slew of gangsters trying to both capture and then off them.
This goes on for so long that you have no idea when the movie is going to end and when it does with all the bad guys ending up as toast it, the ending credits, are about the most surprising scene in the film!
In them coming up so totally unexpectedly in the entire almost two hour movie that they almost knock you off your seat!Dennis Hopper who both stared and directed this turkey after seeing the finished results tried to totally disown himself from it and even had his name taken off the credits, by using a false name instead, as its director.
As for Joe Pesci who was a main character, the sadistic and mentally unstable mob boss Leo Carelli, in the film and should have been in it's top credits he somehow made sure, by giving those who made the movie an offer that they couldn't refuse, that his name would never appear in them..
I know, and it was the WORST great cast film I've ever seen.
I watched this film today, as its gonna be off Netflix soon, fortunately this is the Director's Cut, so it is titled "Backtrack"(probably a bit of irony for Direct/Star Dennis Hopper).
The cast is A-List, Jodi Forster, Dennis Hopper, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, even the crazy guy from Anger Management is in this(we even get cameos by Bob Dylan and Vincent Price) and all do a fine job, the film is known for its unfortunate behind the scenes drama that occurred between Hopper and the original production company, so its nice to see him being able to have the version he wanted released.