Back to Back (1989)

With the opening frames displaying text from Joseph Conrad's Nostromo indicating that this piece may be meant as something more than simply just another action movie, and employment of the services of some of Sam Peckinpah's favourite actors (in addition to a secondary character being named Cable Hogue), this impression is strengthened and smacks of possible auteur homage, but lack of directorial and writing skills reduces the production to a condition of mediocrity. Hank Brand, as lone survivor from a seven million dollar armoured car robbery 27 years before, has been poorly treated by a suspicious citizenry and the local sheriff ever since, becoming a pariah, but after Hank dies his older son Bo (Bill Paxton), a Los Angeles area based attorney, comes to the small community at the base of Arizona's Superstition Mountain Range in an attempt to restore his father's reputation by using the latter's research notes to reconstruct the crime, and also by locating and interviewing witnesses with the assistance of his 17 year old brother Todd (Todd Field). A somewhat mysterious hitchhiker, played by Apollonia Kotero, attaches herself to the brothers as they continue their search for clues to the planning of the long ago robbery, defying the corrupt sheriff (Luke Askew), whose own brother died during the holdup, and other town mandarins, as a series of non-linear flashbacks along with voice-over narration by Ben Johnson playing as a local outfitter, are utilized in an attempt to explain the shadowy events that caused the disappearance of the armoured vehicle with its load of cash. Shot at Apache Junction, Arizona, and the nearby mining ghost town of Goldfield, the work builds upon numerous tales of buried treasure (e. g., The Lost Dutchman Mine) that comprise lore of the Superstition Mountains, and is splendidly photographed by cinematographer James L. Carter, but it is poorly directed and scripted with moronic rock and roll racket emitting from Bo's auto sound system during the film's first half, drowning out a good deal of dialogue. Editing is ragged and, as a result, too little benefit is derived from some capable performers, primarily Paxton and Field, while underwritten parts for Johnson and Susan Anspach can only mildly enliven the affair.