Joey gets out of prison after six years. What crime he has served we don't know yet. He goes to his parental home and rings on the door. A blonde opens. Joey asks for his brother Tommy, troubled the blonde goes to get him. A surprised Tommy invites his younger brother. Against his wife's (the blonde) wish Tommy and Joey agree that Joey should live at their home a while, until he get a job and can get a place of his own.
Tommy sells grass and Lorrain works as stripper at private parties. Joey is determined to not get in to jail again and begins to work as a window cleaner. Something that Tommy think is stupid, because there's more money to earn on drugs.
Joey - who according to himself, is a bit 'slow' since a incident in childhood - develops with time a special relationship with Lorrain, who's at first is skeptical to Joey's stay in the house. Tommy appears the longer the film goes as a real a**hole - he doesn't do anything home, is unfaithful and lies to his wife. When Joey asks Lorrain is happy with her situation he explain, in the key scene of the film, that marriage doesn't have any benefits; "You get marry when you're in love, then you get tired with each other". Lorrain is in any case grateful of that Tommy haven't during their more than four years together never have beaten her once. Something that her former husband did.
No Way Back (the title unfortunately sounds like an inferior action flick.) is a traditional film, without too many clichés. The director manages to work up scenes and solutions we recognize to something natural. Powerful, with an every day tone (e.g. when Joey visits his former girlfriend).
The actors in the three leading roles are exquisite: Tim Roth as Joey does a typical Tim Roth role without because of that it would be too much Tim Roth of the role. James Russo (Tommy) makes a role portrait who resembles that kind of things he done before, but I want to rank this performance as the best I've seen from him. Deborah (Kara) Unger as Lorrain, who placed the centre of gravity on the acting and not to look sexy, convinces with her restrained acting style in her study of a woman who's become tired.
