FLASHBACK
A film review by Bernard Dy
Copyright 1990 Bernard Dy
Flashback stars Dennis Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland in a story which mirrors the current "male-bonding cop stories" but gives the viewer just a little more to think about.
Hopper is Hewey Walker, a stalwart rebel of the 1960's who was put in jail for political crimes. Sutherland is John Buckner, an unshakeable FBI agent who is assigned to escort Walker to another site. For the first part of the film, these two characters work very well, Hopper using style and body language to give the viewer a good picture of the loose and somewhat crazed Walker. He constantly hazes and teases Buckner as he tries to get under his skin. These scenes are enjoyable, but are terribly reminiscent of another film called MIDNIGHT RUN.
As the story progresses, Walker succeeds in breaking down Buckner's hard shell, and in a quick sweep (I'll leave the details out), switches places with Buckner. Walker now wears the conservative suit and tie, and is clean shaven, while Buckner is stuck with the old jeans and jacket. It is part of Walker's great escape plan. However, before Walker can get away clean, he and Buckner both get caught up in a corrupt county sheriff's plans, and basically end up on his death list.
In fleeing from the sheriff, the two characters learn to work together, and each shares his secrets, and learns of the other's. In the end, Walker finds himself catching up with the times, and actually breaking the rules of the counter-culture community by catering to the pursuit of money, while Buckner discovers a latent love for his past involvement with the counter-culture.
What makes this film work is the message which it develops throughout its run. In Walker's own words: "The 90's will make the 80's look like the 50's of the 60's." The difference between this movie and its similar counterparts, MIDNIGHT RUN and TRADING PLACES (amongst others), is the background material and historical validity which come with it. Like most of Hopper's work, it requires the audience to think with their brain, and not just with their eyes, about what is being said. Hopper himself is the key to making this picture better than its predecessors, not only as an actor, but as a creator as well.
On the down side, while I found the movie and its messages entertaining, I didn't find them particularly valuable (versus PLATOON, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, BREAKING AWAY, THE BIG EASY, or other Hopper films: RIDERS OF THE STORM and HOOSIERS). This is definitely lighter Hopper fare, and it's a fun film which is probably what it was intended to be in the first place. The ending was just too pat and sweet for me.
You get the idea in the first 20 minutes that Hopper is really having fun playing Walker. Not a top ten film, by any means, but worth the price of admission especially if you're a Hopper fan. Of course, it is loads better than the standard Hollywood garbage.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 6.5.
Bernie
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews