No Way Back (1995)

Undescribable Perfection

Best movie ever!

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

My suspicions that the 1990s were the worst decade for film are confirmed with this absolutely atrocious travelogue-cum-thriller which wastes the talents of rising star Russell Crowe in an painfully awful piece of predictable filmmaking. Writer/director Frank A. Cappello is the guy responsible for this monstrosity and I don't know what he was thinking, because as a coherent film it's awful.The movie opens with future starlet Kelly Hu dispatching a room of bland bad guys before Crowe, playing a wisecracking cop, gets involved. His job takes him to Japan and back again while he has to contend with a kidnapping (that doesn't seem to phase him too much) and gets saddled with a stewardess (Helen Slater) who might well be the worst supporting female role ever put in a film. It's not just that Slater is terrible (although she is), but her character is even more irritating than Erika Eleniak's in UNDER SIEGE, and that's saying something.Despite the relative shortness of the running time, the plot meanders along with one cringe-inducing gag after another. The action sequences, despite reoccurring at regular intervals, are terribly handled and watch out for the excruciating bit of FX work when a helicopter crashes. The film increasingly tries your patience as it progresses so that by the end I was half sleep, barely aware of the credits rolling; never a good sign!

"No Way Back" is your typical generic action movie. With it's typical generic plot, it's typical generic clichés and it's typical generic run of the book characters. I wasn't really expecting anything great on account on any of these things, but what I wanted to see was some good action and yet it failed even there.There is really only one scene that could actually be worth seeing again and that is the shootout in the beginning. It lasted for about a minute, but it was nicely choreographed, with some relatively good use of slow motion and gun play. Leaving a good first impression. Sadly it does not last long as the movie apparently ran out of budget after that scene was shot and everything went down hill from then on. With some atrocious over the top acting, incredibly annoying female lead and a weak attempt at creating dramatic tension and development between characters. I understand that the filmmakers were running on a tight budget. But they could have at least tried to hide that fact. There are actually several moments when the main character is conversing with his superior in the FBI headquarters, and well it looked like they were shot in some abandoned warehouse. Problems don't stop there though. The movie's what could've been only redeeming factor namely the action scenes besides the one I've spoken of earlier aren't really all that good. It's like two completely different people directed them, with the quality of the latter ones being on the same level as a Dolph Lundgren film.Going in to plot details is unnecessary because chances are you've heard all of this before and seen all of this before done in about half the action movies released in the last 20 years.Besides it's decent beginning there isn't really anything entertaining in "No Way Back". A waste of time .

FBI agent Zack Grant sends a female officer (Seiko) in to the apartment of a mafia boss's son posing as a whore in order to drop a bugging device. However when the agent kills the group and then kills herself Grant finds evidence to suggest that she was working for Yakuza lord Yuji. Grant travels to arrest him but on returning to America finds that the mob have kidnapped his son in exchange for Yuji. However with Yuji claiming innocence and the FBI, police, Yakuza and the mob all after him, can Grant make it to the trade?I watched this film on the strength of Crowe being in the lead – even though I knew that it was made before he `made it' so the quality may not be that great. The plot is a mix of bad guys and good guys all trying to get Grant and Yuji, with Grant just trying to save his son. It isn't a very innovative idea but it is good enough for a video thriller such as this. The set pieces are all reasonably exciting and most are directed with style and energy that belies the standard of the plotting.While it may not be brilliant it is certainly a lot better than most of the video thrillers you'll find on a lonely Saturday night. A big part of this is due to Crowe being in the lead. Years before Gladiator he'd already had some powerful Australian roles and was a commanding lead actor. Here he rises above the material and makes it better – during the action scenes etc he is faultless, it is only his interactions with women and children where he comes across as wanting. Tokokawa's Yuji is a good character – never morally clear until the end and charming and deadly with it. Slater is a bum note but happily she doesn't spoil things too much. Her bubbly comedy sidekick is irritating and the film could have easily done without this part of the video thriller formula.Overall I enjoyed this film much more than I suspected I would. Without Crowe this film still has higher values that I thought it would and is polished and entertaining despite a formulaic plot. With Crowe in the lead the film is raised a notch and he is commanding in an ordinary role that many would have failed to liven up.

Surprised no one has mentioned much of Ian Ziering's appearance in this movie! You won't see Steve at the Peach Pit with those tats!I can't say much for this movie other than I kept my clicker on it while I was doing some errands.Supergirl (Slater) was decent as comic relief. Crowe was decent as the disillusioned and desperate FBI agent. Kelly Hu had a nice appearance as the assassin. Nothing really, just a way to waste 1 1/2 hours.BTW, i noticed the gun in the movie in the airplane hijack scene looked EXTREMELY similar to the gun used in Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire! Is that a knockoff or are there really guns that look like that?!