July 13, 1996

DON’T LOOK BACK is a straight-to-HBO movie, but I thought it might be worth watching because it’s directed by Geoff Murphy (THE QUIET EARTH) between his two great sequels, UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY and FORTRESS 2, and it’s written by Tom Epperson & Billy Bob Thornton & William Petrowitch. The latter doesn’t have any other credits, but the first two of course wrote ONE FALSE MOVE (and later THE GIFT, CAMOUFLAGE and JAYNE MANSFIELD’S CAR). Thornton (DEAD MAN) is also in the movie as one of the villains, and this was his last movie before making SLING BLADE and becoming famous and shit.

Jesse Parish (Eric Stoltz, THE FLY II) is an L.A. deadbeat and heroin enthusiast who carries around a guitar case and occasionally strums. One night while broke and in withdrawal he witnesses a drug deal going sour in a parked car. Skipper (Dwight Yoakam, RED ROCK WEST) shoots at a guy and then chases after him, leaving a flung-open briefcase spewing money unattended. Jesse sneaks over, scoops it up, runs off. I like how Skipper yells “Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” like he caught somebody keying his car or something. Jesse escapes using Donkey Kong tactics (rolling garbage cans down a hill at him), but Skipper hears somebody yell his name.

The money actually belongs to Marshall (Thornton), who is gonna have to insist on getting it back. Skipper’s a funny character because he just murdered a guy but seems unprepared for this criminal world, keeps asking Marshall if he’s mad at him, and takes his answer at face value. Marshall asks him to come to the guy’s place they’re staying at in Topanga. “He’s got a pool table,” he says. He doesn’t mention the Ms. Pac-Man, which I think would’ve been a selling point for me.

Jesse gets his fix and the next day pays all the back rent he owes to his drummer roommate Gary (Ethan Suplee, MALLRATS) and flees to Galveston, Texas to hide the money and stay with his childhood best friend Morgan (John Corbett, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER). He lives near the small island they played pirates on in the childhood prologue, has a rifle collection and a beer can wall. Their other best friend Steve (Josh Hamilton, FIRSTBORN) is more uptight, “a big old corporate fuck now” who’s settled down with a kid and a wife named Michelle (Annabeth Gish, WYATT EARP) and is mad that Jesse ghosted them seven years ago. Is able to recall the number of years immediately. I couldn’t even tell you how many years since my parents died or FURY ROAD came out.

Jesse also checks in on his gruff granddad (R.G. Armstrong, Pruneface from DICK TRACY), who hasn’t seen him in years and doesn’t hide that he always thought he was a fucking piece of shit loser. Which is actually not that unfair. After Jesse gets into a fight while trying to shoot up in a public restroom at the rodeo, the friends decide to bring him out into the woods to go cold turkey, but Michelle objects to her husband going. Morgan gives her a righteous speech about how sixteen-year-old Jesse saved her now mother-in-law from rapists, because that’s just the kind of guy Jesse is. It’s extremely corny but I did like how it cuts to her completely supportively helping pack. It’s nice when people can change their minds and also when dude movies don’t treat the wife character as a naggy impediment.

During all this it keeps cutting back to L.A. where first Skipper and then Marshall with his thugs including Calvin (Mickey Jones, DEAD BANG) follow the bits of information they have from person to person trying to track Jesse. Many of them don’t particularly care for him or feel the need to lie for him. They talk to the ex-roommate, a pony-tailed drug dealer named Mouse (Peter Fonda, DEADFALL), an ex-girlfriend who’s responsible and tried to help him kick but still seems chaotic because she’s played by Amanda Plummer (JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO). I believe they (spoiler) murder that poor lady? They actually kill a couple people in their search and this is one of those crime movies where it doesn’t seem to me the economics work out. Let’s accept their figure of $10,000, even though we clearly saw that a bunch of that fell out onto the ground and the car seat. The budget of SLING BLADE was $1.2 million. I guarantee they spent more than that briefcase just to make the short film version. You think it’s worth multiple murder wraps for that?

On the other hand even now you could buy a Ms. Pac-Man with that and have plenty left over, so maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s worth the risk. Depends how much you like Ms. Pac-Man.

Many people are loyal to Marshall, like when he finds out Jesse’s in Texas he calls up his friend Red (M.C. Gainey, ONE TOUGH BASTARD) to go after him. The old bastard granddad turns out to be willing to risk everything when his boy is in danger. Formulaic, but effective. I can say the same thing about the approaching bad guys, who at first feel so separate from this story in Texas but it’s a slow movement toward a showdown on the island, Jesse trying to keep his friends out of it, but instead them insisting on being there for him. Morgan using his gun collection and calling upon his past in the Gulf War (where he was disappointed not to see combat). Steve showing that he’s not fully domesticated. All of them remembering where they buried treasure as kids and that they swore an oath and all that shit.

Man I probly swore an oath or two as a kid too, I hope this never comes back to me. I don’t think I should be held to that type of agreement. Yeah, this type of story, I have to try to overlook how much it’s adults trying to live out the fantasies they had when they were 12-year-old Galveston dipshits hitting each other with sticks. If you think about it gets kind of embarrassing. It would arguably be possible for Steve to transcend life as a boring oil company dork without risking death and shedding blood to prove he’s still bros with the kids he used to play pirates with in like 1975. Also, it’s kind of nice to grow up and discover a new passion. That could be a happier ending than realizing your life is shit and finally going back to the dumb thing you wanted in your small town childhood before you had experiences or knowledge or friends who weren’t your next door neighbor. In my opinion. But it’s a sweet story here I guess.

DON’T LOOK BACK is passable cable bullshit, I sorta liked it, but wouldn’t really encourage anybody to seek it out. The supporting roles of Thornton and Yoakam are, unsurprisingly, highlights. Stoltz is pretty good but I’m realizing he doesn’t have the right kind of charisma I want in this type of protagonist. Maybe he needs to be more magnetic for me to really care if Jesse is able to transcend his many years of abject dirtbaggery. Or maybe he needed to bust out that guitar and play a solo so soulful it makes us all weep and embrace. One of those two things.

What I found kind of interesting about the movie on a history level was the idea that Thornton & Epperson might be trying to mix their Southern crime style with a little bit of Tarantino, or at least Roger Avary. They’ve got Stoltz from PULP FICTION but playing a long-haired heroin junkie thief like in KILLING ZOE, they’ve also got Plummer, they’ve got Tarantino’s thing of regular L.A. slackers bordering on a criminal underworld, and of course there’s plenty of TRUE ROMANCE in the hero being a pretty regular dude who steals a criminal’s money, goes on the lam, bringing danger with him, having a previously estranged relative sacrifice themselves for him. I think there’s even a direct reference when Skipper is stopped at a crosswalk and Jesse coincidentally walks right in front of him like Marcellus and Butch.

Don’t get me wrong – it doesn’t feel like a Tarantino rip off. I never noticed them trying to mimic his dialogue style, pop culture references or needle drops in the ways that so many copycats did. (In fact, it has a couple contemporary songs in it like a normal movie, for some reason not credited.) I just think it’s interesting that they (intentionally or not) tried mixing in some of his subject matter with theirs right before it turned out their thing (or at least Thornton’s) was gonna hit it off big. Things worked out for everybody.

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Slam Evil Summer Connections: In the opening childhood flashback the three of them cut their fingers to become blood brothers. The trio in HARRIET THE SPY did something like that but they just drew a picture with marker and transferred it to each other’s feet – I think they had the right idea. Of course, I don’t know if they will grow up and have gun fights together. Maybe it needs to be actual blood to make a friendship that strong.

P.S. I have a badge for when a movie I review has zero external reviews on IMDb. Always a point of pride. For this one only capsule reviews for Comeuppance Reviews (which called it “a very exciting action-thriller”) and Entertainment Weekly (which raved “Page Not Found”) beat me. Not bad.