‘Switchback’ Takes Us Down Familiar Road
You’d think something that calls itself “SwitchBack” would be more careful about making wrong turns. But the movie goes awry quickly, with your standard false-alarm scene.
You know the one: A vulnerable person (say, a female babysitter) goes around a dark house, checking on some creepy noise outside, and something innocuous (say, a cat) comes out of the shadows. She jumps, we jump, we’re relieved for a sec and then - bam! - the real killer strikes.
At the beginning of “Scream,” Wes Craven played a similar scene like a symphony, conducting poor Drew Barrymore into a crescendo of fright. At the beginning of “SwitchBack,” director Jeb Stuart plays it like “Chopsticks” - it’s unchallenging, and it’s been done a million times.
And before the opening credits finish rolling, we know we’re in trouble again as we meet your standard good ol’ boy sheriff (R. Lee Ermey) and your standard smarmy police chief (William Fichtner). They’ve got a problem: Three bloody bodies have been found in a local motel room. Or, rather, the lawmen have an opportunity, because they’re locked in your standard political battle, and apparently whoever solves the case wins.
Along comes your standard dour FBI agent who knows more than the hicks (Dennis Quaid). The smarmy police chief, not up on his cliches, doesn’t buy what the FBI agent is selling, and charges the wrong guy with the murders. The good ol’ boy sheriff has done his homework, and he works with the agent to find the real killer.
Meanwhile - oh, did you think we were finished? - a medical school dropout (Jared Leto) hitches a desert ride with an eccentric but jovial cowboy-type driver (Danny Glover). The dropout suspects something’s amiss, but the driver earns his trust with a bar-fight rescue. (Someday, a Southwest Anti-Defamation League will form just to protest these scenes where the locals pick on an outsider just ‘cause he ain’t from ‘round there.)
It’s hard to believe that this amalgam of cliches, stock characters and convoluted logic came from Jeb Stuart, who wrote “The Fugitive,” one of the best TV-to-screen adaptations.
Even if you could forgive its by-the-numbers plot, you’d still have to deal with some howlingly bad dialogue and suspend your disbelief until the middle of next week to buy the bad guy’s plan, which involves the good guy acting exactly as expected.
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “SwitchBack” Locations: Spokane Valley, Lyons and Showboat cinemas Credits: Directed by Jeb Stuart, starring Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto Running time: 2:01 Rating: R