THE COMEBACK TRAIL : Tuesday 17th November 2020.

'THE COMEBACK TRAIL' which I saw this week is an M Rated American crime comedy film Written and Directed by George Gallo who has twenty-two Writer credits, ten as Producer and sixteen as Director to his name including 'Double Take', 'Local Color', 'Homeland Security', 'Middle Men', 'Columbus Circle' and 'The Poison Rose'. This film is a remake of the 1982 film of the same name Directed by Harry Hurwitz. Featuring an ensemble cast, this film saw its Premiere screening at the 43rd Mill Valley Film Festival in California in mid-October this year and now gets a run in Australia ahead of its originally slated release Stateside in mid-December which has subsequently been pushed back to sometime next year. 

The film opens in 1974 Hollywood with grindhouse movie Producer Max Barber (Robert De Niro) sat at a cafe table with his business partner and nephew Walter Creason (Zach Braff) reading the latest Review for their new movie about to have its World Premier screening at a cinema just down the street. That movie is titled 'Killer Nuns' and lobbying the theatre in protest is a group of nuns parading up and down the street with placards chanting to boycott the film. They have sold no tickets to the World Premier event and Walter coyly says to Max that perhaps its time to give up on the movie making business. But Max is an old hand at the film game and he reminds his nephew that their company 'Miracle Motion Pictures' lives by the motto 'If it's Good, It's a Miracle' and as miracles happen every day they just need to watch out for one to land their way, and it will, such is Max's optimism.  

When Max arrives back at his home, which is right under the flightpath of an airport so the house shakes violently every time a plane lands or takes off, he is greeted by Reggie Fontaine (Morgan Freeman) a mob boss whom he is indebted to to the tune of US$350K for financing 'Killer Nuns'. As the movie has bombed, Reggie wants his money back and straight away. After exchanging some dialogue about classic movies and Actors, Reggie gives Max three days to come up with the money, otherwise he's dead meat!

In the office of 'Miracle Motion Pictures' Max and Walter contemplate their futures and their next production. Walter picks up a script of a movie called 'Paradise' which Max wrote years ago, and which rival film producer James Moore (Emile Hirsch) who once worked for Max, has been keen to get his hands on for years, and is prepared to pay handsomely for it. But Max is very attached to 'Paradise' saying that it is Oscar material, the dialogue is top notch and that he has in mind certain production values and certain casting decisions to make the film - only he can't possibly afford the US$1M+ price tag to put his movie and his script into production. Max visits James Moore at his lavish home and asks for a loan of US$350K to pay off his debt to Reggie. Moore is prepared to write a cheque on the spot for the US$350K on one condition! And that is that Max sells him the rights to his 'Paradise' screenplay for which after some bidding toing and froing Moore ups the ante to US$1M, with the US$350K as a downpayment. Max is tempted, but still refuses to budge on his beloved script. 

After visiting the set of Moore's latest US$1M action movie starring the much loved and highly regarded Hollywood Actor Frank Pierce (Patrick Muldoon), at which Max and Moore are still at loggerheads over his 'Paradise' script, they witness Pierce fall to his death from six storeys up while preparing for a stunt. Later back home, the news of Pierce's deaths is all over the news channels, saying that as the Actor performed all his own stunts the studio will receive a US$5M pay out from the insurance company. Whilst Max is livid at Moore's good fortune in financing a film that had a budget of US$1M, he's going to get back US$5M and had less that one days film footage in the can. But, a light goes on inside Max's head. 

Enter Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones) a washed up aging depressed old drunk who back in the day was a renowned Actor famed for playing a gun totting fearless cowboy. Now he resides all alone in a nursing home for retired Actors and once every day puts a single bullet in his six shooter pistol, spins the chamber and places the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger, thus far unsuccessfully. Max and Walter track down Duke and offer him the lead role in their new upcoming movie 'The Oldest Gun in the West'. 

Unbeknownst to Walter however, is the fact that Max has an ulterior motive in hiring Duke. Willing to perform all his own stunts, Max intends to kill off Duke during a stunt, and claim a hefty insurance payout. After hiring a suitable Director to helm the film project, Megan Albert (Kate Katzman), and bringing Reggie in on the scam just as his three day deadline is about to lapse, the movie goes into production. 

Reggie calls Max after the first day of filming to enquire about Duke's demise, but Duke survived his first stunt when his horse stalled at a burning wagon tossing him through the flames sending him crashing down to the ground on the other side, on fire. On the second day, Reggie calls again hoping for more favourable news that the lead Actor is well and truly dead, but Max reports that Duke survived another stunt involving a sabotaged rope bridge across a deep ravine with a fast flowing river below. On the third day after receiving further similar news of another survived stunt, Reggie decides to take the law into his own hands and visit the set and kill the sucker himself.  

In the meantime Max and Walter review the dailies and with Megan agree that the footage in the can so far has 'hit' written all over it. Walter is more excited about the prospect of them having their first sure fire hit on their hands than Max is, whose only interest is in killing off his star and claiming the insurance. In the meantime, Max just about survives a number of very near misses himself including getting kicked in the chest by Duke's stunt horse, Butterscotch. 

Reggie and a couple of his henchmen arrive on the set just as Duke is about to shoot a crucial scene involving him and a bunch of native Indian Americans standing off against a town's Sheriff, with both sides poised to draw their guns. Reggie walks straight in on the scene as Megan calls 'cut' with his own pistol drawn ready to gun down Duke for real. Sensing the commotion, Duke mounts Butterscotch, hauls up Max onto his back and gallops off, leaving Reggie to give chase in his car. They arrive at an abandoned drive in movie theatre where Max ordered Walter to grab a roll of film and project it on to the screen, so that Reggie could see some of the unfinished footage for himself. At the crucial moment the film rolls, and Reggie gazes up at the screen with a big smile on his dial. He also thinks that the film is going to be a hit, and orders Max to finish the movie. 

With the film in the can, we fast forward some months to the World Premier of 'The Oldest Gun in the West' with the audience at capacity and the media in attendance conducting red carpet interviews with cast and crew. Max, Walter, Reggie, Megan and James Moore are all present with Reggie interrupting an interview with Max saying that he is from this point forward going to Co-Produce every one of Max's movies. Duke arrives on his trusted steed, but refuses to be interviewed or to watch the World Premier screening saying that he doesn't like big crowds or being couped up indoors. He'd rather be outside riding his horse, and off he gallops as we see him riding through the foothills under the Hollywood sign. 

This film seemingly has pretty much divided audiences and Critics alike, and its easy to see why. On the one hand it has a strong cast of De Niro, Jones, Freeman, Braff and Hirsch who don't deliver any laugh out moments but do manage to raise a chuckle every so often, and who genuinely look as though they're having a good time on screen by hamming up the movie industry of yesteryear with cornball jokes and pratfalls. On the other hand the script is a little ho hum, the plot is predictable but at a fairly brisk running time of just over one hundred minutes, the film moves along at a good pace. It's not great, but it's not that bad either. 

'The Comeback Trail' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-