For a low-budget movie, BACKFLASH looks pretty good. The cinematography is crisp and bright, and while some scenes look a little sparse at times, it never looks really cheap. The problem instead is with the screenplay. It plays like a first draft - scenes go by v-e-r-y slowly, when the story should play out quicker and tighter. There's no spark, and that includes the various twists and turns - you'll most likely have seen most of them before, so they aren't a surprise. The movie tries to jerk us around more near the end, but the twists in this part aren't believable and/or just lead to plot holes. And while Robert Patrick isn't a bad actor, he's wrong for a role that more belongs to someone who can convincingly play a little dim and not totally sure of things. And sadly, Michael J. Pollard is wasted in a role that just gives him two minutes of screen time at most.
