The greatest movie ever made..!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Switchback is written and directed by Jeb Stuart. It stars Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey, Ted Levine and William Fitchner. Music is by Basil Poledouris and cinematography by Oliver Wood.FBI agent Frank LaCrosse (Quaid) is tracking a serial killer who he believes kidnapped his young son.Switchback is a standard serial killer based thriller that flopped at the box office. It's not a bad film but it never delivers on its potential. The location travelogue of the story is most impressive, especially the last third once we get to the snowy mountains of Colorado, but it's the scenery that grips and holds the attention more than the plot.The red herrings have interest value enough for us to stay with what is at just under two hours a long film, but resolutions are either anti climatic or too obvious. Cast are a mixed bag, with Quaid just okay as the perpetually bleak protag and Glover sadly winding out as miscast once film shows its hands. Thankfully Leto and Ermey are on hand to keep a rein on things, playing the intended thriller tone just right as per their respective characters.It's perhaps unlucky to have followed far superior/intelligent serial killer based thrillers, rendering it then and now as weak offerings. It's not the dead on stinker the box office suggests, and trimmed of 20 minutes it would have been a decent time waster, but as it is it plays out as unoriginal and lacking in directorial focus. 5/10

Compared to other serial-killer flicks of the 1990s, director Jeb Stuart's "Switchback" is pretty good. It stars Dennis Quaid as an FBI agent who's busy tracking a murderer across the United States. Assisting him is Buck Olmstead (R. Lee Ermey), a small-town sheriff. The film also finds actors Jard Leto and Danny Glover playing a pair of likable drifters. One of them may also be the killer.More competent as travelogue than thriller, "Switchback" is at its best when its drifting in and out of motels, towns, train-stops, snow-capped roads or hanging out with ancillary characters. Stuart would have done better to delay the revelation of his killer's identity by an extra half hour, but for the most part avoids formula.7.9/10 – Underrated. See "Jennifer Eight", "Flesh and Bone" (1993), "The Pledge", "Memories of Murder", "Night of the Hunter" and "Humanite" (1999).

I mostly liked "Switchback", but the last half hour or so seemed kind of anticlimactic, as if suddenly the truth gets revealed and then nothing more can happen. Granted, they did have a lot of tricks up to that point, but I still would have preferred a bigger surprise at the end. Nevertheless, Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto and R. Lee Ermey do well in their roles. I kind of wish that more movies took place in the Rocky Mountains region (the most famous one is "The Shining", but another good one is "Sunshine Cleaning").Anyway, an OK movie, but I would have preferred a stronger ending.PS: Maggie Roswell, who plays Fae, is best known as one of the voices on "The Simpsons".

Formally a thriller, this film is in fact a rather substantive morality play about the price of integrity. Everyone in the film is called upon to make a moral choice that reflects who and what they are. And choosing has a price. Sheriff Olmstead played masterfully by R. Lee Ermey--once observes that "He--FBI agent Frank La Crosse--told the truth, and once you tell the truth, everything else is just cheap whiskey." Olmstead's observation pretty much sums up the film. Virtue is good whiskey. Laughably, Ermey delivers this line spot on with a bottle of Jim Beam--definitely not good whiskey--in the background. Olmsteads's integrity costs him the sheriff's election. His elective replacement, Chief McGinnis, played by William Fichtner, initially comes across as a pompous ass: but even he makes a virtuous choice that eventually costs him. Jared Leto who plays Lane Dixon, a burned out physician who strangely bonds with the killer, is another case of self-discovery through moral agency. Even Bob Goodall--a.k.a Danny Glover--the clearly insane serial killer, has a kind of warped integrity. Twisted, yes; but true to his "twistedness". FBI agent La Crosse's observation that the killer, Bob Goodall--the name is hardly accidental--may be a murderer but is not a liar simply underscores the film's larger Stoic themes. As Epictetus put it: "Be one man, bad or good." This film, written and directed by Jeb Stuart should have received more critical attention. It is a thoughtful and philosophically reflective film that paid a price for its quirky moral subtext and integrity: it flopped at the box office. Philosophical films, even subdued ones, are generally not money makers--even with decent writing such as this and a popular genre that should have been an appropriate vehicle for its message. However, even for an unreflective viewer this is an entertaining film directed and written by the same guy--Jeb Stuart--who wrote the screenplays for "Die Hard" and "The Fugitive".