Jack's Back (1988)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Original Narrative Hook Poor Ending No spoilers but it's necessary to give away the narrative hook to explain the complex plot.Someone is LA is copy catting the Jack the Ripper murders exactly 100 years to the date. Everyone in LA is on high alert as this is the night of the fifth and final murder.James Spader is a left handed doctor named Jack. GET IT? But Spader is not the Ripper. He accidentally stumbles on the fifth murder and finds a coworker at his office also named Jack. The two fight and Jack insists he is not the Ripper just before hanging Spader and making it look like the Ripper committed suicide after completing his killing.Similar to 'Psycho's twist of the lead character dying early in the film, we are left to wonder, how can Spader find the real Ripper if he's dead within the first 20 minutes? Enter Spader's black sheep twin brother Rick with a criminal history. Rick is furious with the police whom are trying to pin the murders on his brother. Rick's brotherhood bond lets him know just as we do that Spader was not the killer nor did he commit suicide.Not only do the cops dismiss Rick's claims but when some evidence leads away from their original theory, the cops start looking at him as being his brother's accomplice.As the audience we know the original Spader twin is innocent but could Rick be the real killer? Unfortunately the ending isn't surprising, it's just plain silly. But for the first 1:15 it keeps us hanging on the every single clue. It's worth watching.

Writer/director Rowdy Herrington seems to want to say something about homelessness, but then the theme trails off.The best reason to watch this, for most people, is that James Spader plays two roles. (Identical twins, and one of them has an earring!) It may be this film that inspired me to embark on my project of cloning Spader. No luck yet, but I will keep you posted.Considering the title refers to Jack the Ripper, this film is surprisingly even handed when it comes to the ratio of female to male victims of violence.There isn't much to dislike about the writing or the acting, but there isn't anything that really jumps out as outstanding.

This pretty insipid horror film let's you know you're in trouble pretty quickly with bad '80s pop playing over the opening credits - wow, now there's a way to suggest coming menace - and continues to purvey its absurd plot featuring obviously telegraphed, stupid twists that Brian de Palma or Dario Argento might have made something foolishly entertaining, but which Rowdy Herrington essays with all the inspiration of an infomercial. It's ridiculous to see Spader play identical twins, one of whom is a medical student and the other, who has no physical differences whatsoever in his matchstick frame, who's supposed to have been a member of a tough gang, been through the army and prison, and in the course of the film beats up a guy twice his size. The only redeeming feature is indeed in the net being drawn around the wayside hero in trying to clear his brother and avoid arrest himself, so you kind of wanted him to win out, but basically when finished I felt I had wasted a chunk of my life.

A twisty thriller that owes most of it's appeal to the charismatic lead performance by James Spader, which gives the film slightly more credibility than it deserves. For those with a penchant for suspense and surprise then there should be enough here to keep you happy, but don't look too hard, as the rest of the film is derivative and cliche-ridden, which is a real shame because it has the potential to be original. Don't be led astray by the 'Jack The Ripper' analogy, as the film has very little to do with that, and the title seems like a gratuitous cash-in on the centenary. All the killings (bar one) have already taken place at the start of the movie, and the plot is driven not by the hunt for the killer, but rather by the search for the killer of Spader's brother, who is implicated in the murders. When the 'Ripper' is finally revealed it's obvious and unnecessary, since the rest of the story has already been neatly closed. It's also preposterous to believe that the real killer, having completed so perfectly his copycat 'Ripper' killings, would implicate himself, and provide a lifeline for the police's prime suspect who is behind bars, by attempting to murder our leading lady. This final reel is pointless, and only highlights the flaws in the screenplay which have allowed us to be sidetracked away from the real issue.