Movies

I was surprised by this film quite a bit. I thought it would be another mediocre paint-by-the-number genre piece. To my amazement Switchback is a taut and suspenseful film. Its fun to see Danny Glover cast against type. By no means a masterpiece, but well worth watching by thriller fans

I liked just about every aspect of this movie. The local police aren't portrayed as a bunch of inbred idiots, the killer isn't portrayed as maniacal and impersonable, and the FBI agent isn't just a suit with all the personality of a tube of toothpaste. All of these combine to make a refreshing murder mystery/thriller. This isn't the classic "who dun it?" type of murder mystery; rather, it is more in the flavor of "Silence of the Lambs", where we discover who the killer is long before the end of the movie, and the suspense comes from anticipating the hero catching the villain.

As a thriller, this had some holes. For starters, Stuart identifies the killer too early (at least, I figured it out), so some tension is robbed). The postcard thing never really made any sense to me. And though it's clear who the killer is, his identity raises questions about how Quaid's son is kept without the authorities knowing. But I can forgive a lot of that because we care about the characters. Quaid, Ermey, and Glover, are three of our finest character actors, and they make us interested in their characters. Also, Ted Levine offers fine support, and Jared Leto creates mystery in his role when there wasn't a whole lot written in.