Name: Retro Film Review: No Way Back (1995)
Item: No Way Back
Rating: 50
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

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 films and big roles in small films. 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 film 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 90210 fame) and some who might have it in the future (Kelly Hu of The Scorpion 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 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on April 24th 2003)