Sometimes, you see a film that is just so weird and incoherent that you can’t help but love it.

Of course, it also helps if the film has a once-in-a-lifetime cast of actors who you would never expect to see acting opposite each other.

For me, that’s certainly the case with 1990’s Backtrack.  Directed by Dennis Hopper, Backtrack is a film about an artist (Jodie Foster, channeling Jenny Holzer) who witnesses a mob murder committed by Joe Pesci, Dean Stockwell, Tony Sirico, and John Turturro.  An FBI agent played by Fred Ward suggests that the artist should go into the witness protection program but she doesn’t want to give up her life as a New York sophisticate who creates challenging LED displays and who can eat Sno Balls whenever she gets the craving for one.  (Yes, this is a plot point.)  Turturro and Sirico break into the artist’s apartment and kill her boyfriend, who is played by a wide-eyed Charlie Sheen.  The artist puts on a blonde wig and goes on the run, eventually getting a job in advertising.

Realizing that his men can’t get the job done, mob boss Vincent Price decides to hire a legendary hitman played by Dennis Hopper (who also directed this film) to track down the artist.  However, the hitman becomes fascinating with the artist’s work, finds pictures of her posing in black lingerie, and immediately falls in love with her.  Not only does he wants to save her life but he wants her to wear the same lingerie exclusively for him.  (Yes, this is a pretty big plot point.)  At first, the artist refuses and views the hitman as being some sort of pathetic perv.  But then she discovers that he’s covered her bed with Sno Balls….

Meanwhile, a young Catherine Keener shows up as the girlfriend of a trucker who briefly considers giving the artist a ride to Canada.

And then Bob Dylan shows up, handling a chainsaw.

And there’s Helena Kallianiotes, the outspoken hitch-hiker from Five Easy Pieces, yelling at Joe Pesci!

And there’s Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie co-star, Julie Adams!  And there’s Toni Basil!  And there’s director Alex Cox!

Dennis Hopper not only starred in Backtrack but he also directed and it’s obvious that he placed a call into just about everyone he knew.  In fact, one could argue that the only thing more shocking than Vincent Price showing up as a mob boss is that Peter Fonda, Karen Black, Elliott Gould, Robert Walker Jr., and Kris Kristofferson are nowhere to be found in the film.  Hopper’s first cut of Backtrack was reportedly 3 hours long but the studio cut it down to 90 minutes, renamed it Catchfire, and Hopper insisted on being credited as Alan Smithee.  Later, Hopper released a two-hour version with the Backtrack title and his directorial credit restored.

Regardless of which version you see, Backtrack is an odd film.  It’s hardly the first film to be made about a hit man falling for his target.  What distinguishes this film is just how bizarre a performance Dennis Hopper gives in the role of the hitman.  It’s as if Hopper gave into every method instinct that he had and the end result was a mix of Blue Velvet‘s Frank Booth and the crazed photojournalist from Apocalypse Now.  Jodie Foster’s cool intelligence makes her the ideal choice for a conceptual artist but it also makes it hard to believe that she would fall for a jittery hitman and, in her romantic scenes with Hopper, Foster often seems to be struggling to resist the temptation to roll her eyes.  Somehow, their total lack of romantic chemistry becomes rather fascinating to work.  They are two talented performers but each appears to be acting in a different movie.  What’s interesting is that I think a movie just about Hopper’s spacey hitman would be interesting (and, if you’ve ever seen The American Friend, it’s hard not to feel that such a movie already exists) but I think a movie about just about Foster’s artist and her life in New York would be just as fascinating.  Taken as individuals, the artist and the hitman are both compelling characters.  Taken as a couple, they don’t belong anywhere near each other.

But let’s be honest.  This is a film that most people will watch for the parade of character actors delivering quirky dialogue.  Even if one takes Hopper and Foster out of this mix, this is an amazingly talented cast.  One need only consider that John Turturro did Do The Right Thing before appearing in this film while Joe Pesci and Tony Sirico did Goodfellas immediately afterwards.  This film features a once-in-a-lifetime cast, made up of actors who were apparently told to do whatever they felt like doing.  Turturro plays up the comedy.  Sirico plays his role with cool menace.  Stockwell barely speaks above a whisper.  Fred Ward plays the one sane man in a world of lunatics. Vincent Price delivers his line as if he’s appearing in one of Roger Corman’s Poe films and somehow, it makes sense that, in the world of Backfire, an Italian gangster would have a snarky, mid-Atlantic accent.

It’s an odd little film, an example of 80s filmmaking with a 70s sensibility.  While it’s not touched with the lunatic genius that distinguished Hopper’s The Last Movie, Backtrack is still something that should be experienced at least once.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

1. Half-Baked
2. Save The Last Dance
3. Every Rose Has Its Thorns
4. The Jeremy Kyle Show
5. Invasion USA
6. The Golden Child
7. Final Destination 2
8. Paparazzi
9. The Principal
10. The Substitute
11. Terror In The Family
12. Pandorum
13. Lambada
14. Fear
15. Cocktail
16. Keep Off The Grass
17. Girls, Girls, Girls
18. Class
19. Tart
20. King Kong vs. Godzilla
21. Hawk the Slayer
22. Battle Beyond the Stars
23. Meridian
24. Walk of Shame
25. From Justin To Kelly
26. Project Greenlight
27. Sex Decoy: Love Stings
28. Swimfan
29. On the Line
30. Wolfen
31. Hail Caesar!
32. It’s So Cold In The D
33. In the Mix
34. Healed By Grace
35. Valley of the Dolls
36. The Legend of Billie Jean
37. Death Wish
38. Shipping Wars
39. Ghost Whisperer
40. Parking Wars
41. The Dead Are After Me
42. Harper’s Island
43. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
44. Paranormal State
45. Utopia
46. Bar Rescue
47. The Powers of Matthew Star
48. Spiker
49. Heavenly Bodies
50. Maid in Manhattan
51. Rage and Honor
52. Saved By The Bell 3. 21 “No Hope With Dope”
53. Happy Gilmore
54. Solarbabies
55. The Dawn of Correction
56. Once You Understand
57. The Voyeurs 
58. Robot Jox
59. Teen Wolf
60. The Running Man
61. Double Dragon