Backtrack (2015)
Starring Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, Bruce Spence, Robin McLeavy, Jenni Baird, Anna Lise Phillips
Directed by Michael Petroni
With Backtrack, director Michael Petroni and star Adrien Brody have made a ghost story that becomes a quick fix for deep-seated guilt brought on by a childhood tragedy. The mystery that slowly (maybe too slowly at times) unravels itself isn’t overly complicated, but because of the emotional revelations the story reveals, there’s definitely a satisfying, surprisingly action-packed conclusion when everything is said and done.
Brody cozies up to an Australian accent as he embodies the character of Peter Bower, a broken man who resembles the psychologist’s version of Max Rockatansky after his child is run over due to his own negligence. He’s still living but knows he will never really live again, making him the perfect listener when it comes to his patients, who all happen to be dead. How they died and why is directly tied to Peter as he begins to figure out his role in their deaths with the assistance of his suspiciously helpful friend and therapist, Duncan Stewart (Neill).
There’s a consistent eeriness throughout Backtrack that makes some of the slow-moving scenes feel like part of a larger, well-crafted world that has a confident sense of atmosphere that harkens back to thrillers with a more classic, deliberate setup. Peter has to eventually return home and deal with the fact that the kind of carelessness that resulted in his daughter’s death happened once before when he and his best friend, Barry (Malcolm Kennard), did something that ended in tragedy and has haunted the town ever since. To free the souls that keep popping up and scaring the shit out of Peter, he must deal with his own guilt and come clean.
The scenes involving these ghosts eventually turn them into a sort of traveling band that points him in the right direction by acting out their own deaths and appearing in places that hold clues that might release them from limbo. The problem is they completely disappear about half of the way through, making their earlier presence feel more like well-timed jump scares instead of setting up any real connection with them as characters. Backtrack focuses too much on the characters that are still living at times, which makes it feel unsure of what kind of movie it wants to be. Is this a ghost story or a murder mystery? Once things wrap up, it’s a little bit of both, but it has to completely ignore its initial setup in order to get there.
Backtrack does have an episodic kind of feel to it that makes it seem like a longer, more epic journey than it actually is, and the transition from the seedy city to small town mystery is a good combination. Brody is the emotional center, and it’s a solid role for him, and his and Neill’s involvement helps elevate some of the more important beats in the movie. Out of Tribeca this year, Saban Films has just acquired Backtrack so look out for it if you’re looking for a moody, mystery-driven ghost story on a rainy night.
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Film
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