Switchback

Switchback is not an action film. It is not a character study. It is magic realism and a tone poem of impossible grief set to modern Western mountain railroading. As such it takes advantage of the very unfamiliar world of rail sighting locations, sidings, engineers and roustabouts that work the rails to form a new and wonderful language to describe a story that is about convictions stronger than self interest. R. Lee Ermey gives a surprising, warm and nuanced performance in the role of the real hero of the movie: a man who sees the right and does it despite its almost comic costs to his self esteem and future employment. Quaid underplays the lead role as if he were a dreamer: a correct approach since he is both a "rogue FBI agent" and an everyman searching for lost innocence. As the G-man in the "story" he has gone AWOL looking for his own kidnapped son based on clues dangled by a peculiarly homo-erotic serial killer played with disturbing and refreshing finesse by Glover (his best acting to date period). As an everyman urgently trying to "come to believe" that there could be truth and satisfaction in the words of a ruthless enemy he is all of us worrying over our children in high REM sleep. The juxtaposition of the killer and the young doctor (Leto) that has become his sidekick offers much of the narrative suspense of the film, but it is the freight railroad itself that becomes a character in the film around which all the alter egos of this detective yarn revolve and "switchback". A close watching of this directorial, editing and acting gem will show it to be more than in the Hitchcock tradition: it is an inspired flicker show. Greatly underrated and rewarding film.