NO WAY BACK (1995)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

Russell Crowe, before becoming one of the hottest Hollywood stars,
had to pass through usual purgatory reserved for all those with
stellar ambitions - smaller roles in big movies and big roles in small
movies. Russell Crowe's appearance in NO WAY BACK, 1995 action
comedy written and directed by Frank A. Cappello, fits the
description of the latter.

In this movie Crowe plays Zack Grant, FBI agent who is trying to put
behind bars gang of vicious white supremacists who are currently at
war with Japanese yakuzas. Grant's efforts are foiled when it turns
out that he is not the only one being fooled in a sting operation
conducted against the supremacist gang. Seiko Kobayashi (played by
Kelly Hu), his undercover agent, reveals herself to be in service of
yakuzas and uses sting operation to assassinate supremacist leader
Victor Serlano (played by Ian Ziering). Grant is humiliated and
decides to track down and arrest her yakuza boss Yuji Kobayashi
(played by Etsushi Toyokawa). But this is just the start of his
problems - murdered racist happened to be son of mafia boss Frank
Serlano (played by Michael Lerner). Mobster kidnaps Zack's seven-
year old son Eric (played by Andrew J. Ferchland) and demands the
handover of Yuji.

Crowe is not the only star that appears in this obscure little film. The
cast of NO WAY BACK features some actors who showed great
potential in the past (Helen Slater, Ian Ziering of BEVERLY HILLS
92100 fame) and some who might have it in the future (Kelly Hu of
SCORPIO KING). Presence of those actors, however, wouldn't matter
much if not for Frank Cappello showing great skill in handling some
of the inadequacies of his own script. The plot, full of various
motives, cartoonish villains and holes, somehow manages to work
because Cappello gracefully shifts between action and comedy, and
somewhere along the way he even has time to explore same themes
that he had dealt with in his earlier work, AMERICAN YAKUZA -
cultural clash and old-fashioned values of loyalty, friendship and
honour in modern, globalised world. NO WAY BACK in most
likelihood won't enter film histories, but it represent quite fitting title
for the real start for Russell Crowe's career.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

Review written on April 24th 2003


Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society