10/31/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Switchback
Quaid's 'Switchback' is a cliffhanger

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

**** (out of five)
Starring Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey. A Paramount picture written and directed by Jeb Stuart. Rated R, contains violence, profanity, nudity. Running time: 120 minutes.

Switchback is a good title for this western mystery thriller about the hunt for a serial killer, because it keeps switching back to upset your early notions of who did what to whom and why.

In other words, abandon all preconceptions. Switchback keeps you on edge.

And that happens right from the start, in a sequence involving a baby sitter in a big dark house that's eerily reminiscent of the scary opening of Scream. It's no accident that Switchback is premiering on Halloween.

The many pieces of the puzzle that is Switchback are tossed at you in the first half hour. A little boy is kidnapped. Two bodies are found, Psycho-style in the shower of a motel bathroom. A crusty sheriff in a West Texas town is chasing clues while running hard against a slick contender for his job in the upcoming election. A mysterious drifter faces down a bunch of rednecks in a bar. A sugar-voiced man, whose Cadillac's interior is plastered with pictures of naked women, turns up in the nick of time to prevent mayhem. An FBI man is anxiously tracking a serial killer.

As in any good mystery, most of these characters harbor secrets. Not all are who they say they are . . . nor what they seem. The fun of Switchback is fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. Just when you think you've got it figured out, writer-director Jeb Stuart switches everything around.

Dennis Quaid as FBI agent

It's not just a game, however. Switchback has a lot more substance, thanks to its genuine and emotion-charged performances. Dennis Quaid is the FBI agent who holds a personal grudge against the serial killer and faces a deadline to find him before he kills again. R. Lee Ermey is the down-home sheriff whose sense of deductive reasoning is put to the test by the question marks in the case while trying to look good to the voters against the quickness of his spotlight-grabbing opponent. Danny Glover is Bob, who seems to be everybody's best friend in the snowy West, a quick-thinking character who knows his way out of a tight corner. The young, mysterious Lane Dixon (Jared Leto) is a drifter on the run from personal demons and seems to have been at the scene of every murder.

Any more said about them runs the risk of giving away too much in Switchback, which depends on surprises that are sprung to keep the audience off balance. That not only builds suspense, but also creates a scare factor because at various times it seems that any of three characters could be the serial killer.

Directing debut

Stuart, who is making his directing debut, has impeccable credentials as a writer. He co-wrote the scripts for such terrific thrillers as Die Hard and The Fugitive and he doesn't disappoint here.

In addition to the taut mind games the film springs throughout, Stuart has created two big physical thrill scenes that will keep audiences on edge. One is played out in a car that's wobbling on the edge of a cliff. The other involves a fight that rages along the outside of a train that's roaring through mountainous terrain.

Ermey is perfect as the down-home inquisitive sheriff. Glover brings Bob a lot of hail-fellow-well-met warmth that makes you like him from the start and Leto becomes a solid force as the mysterious stranger.

But it's Quaid, who sorely needs a hit, who is in peak form here as the FBI agent (or is he?) who's tracking that serial killer and must find him before a specific date when the attention-loving killer has vowed to murder again.

Quaid plays it close at first, only slowly letting us see why he is so obsessed with finding the killer, before he turns into something of a madman himself, dangling from the side of a railroad car that's heading for the tight confines of a tunnel. Hang on!