This is prime-era Spader.
Not evil Spader with his patented soft-spoken menace and that lizard-cool gaze that makes you want to punch him in the DNA, no this is good Spader. In fact he plays a twin role, where one’s a nice-guy idealist, and the other is his harder, more suspect brother. The double performance is a big reason to give this saucy Jack its due, but you also get the slow smokey burn of pulp detective work set to some saxy liminal neon noir.
In fact, stylistically, it sits on the shelf somewhere between an 80s crime drama and the big studio cat-and-mouse thrillers that would take over the next decade. You can feel the genre shifting into that direction – There’s no prestige sheen or erotic charge here, but you get the investigative angle, the psych evaluations, the lone man piecing things together while being watched himself.
That makes Jack’s Back a worthwhile footnote in the lead-up to the studio psychological thriller boom that would dominate the early ’90s. It’s worth tracking down, and it helps to know that Jack’s Back was Rowdy Herrington’s directorial debut. He made Road House the following year.
-Pop
Jack’s Back arrived on Home Video this week in 1988, after a May 6th theatrical release.