Crowe stars as Zack Grant, an FBI agent whose loose style has him in hot water with the agency. Grant has managed to screw up a number of big investigations, and his latest is no different. While tracking a group of neo-Nazis led by Victor Seriano (Ian Ziering), he and his partner, Seiko (Kelly Hu), turn a simple infiltration into a Wild West shoot-out. This ends with Seiko taking a plunge out of a window with a live grenade. Luckily, the FBI surveillance van was there to break her fall.
Grant is eventually given another chance, this time to infiltrate a Yakuza gang. Per usual, Grant manages to screw up the mission, but he is able to nab the gang's ringleader, Yuji (Etsushi Toyokawa). Somehow or another, Yuji shares a connection with Grant's former partner. Meanwhile, mob boss Frank Seriano (Michael Lerner) decides to kidnap Grant's son and demands Grant turn over Yuji in exchange. He knows Yuji had something to do with his son's death and wants revenge.
From here, the movie switches gears from action flick to buddy cop movie. Grant and Yuji escape from a plane while on the run from the mob boss's enforcer, Mr. Contingency (Kristopher Logan). Along the way, they pick up a ditzy flight attendant, Mary (Helen Slater), and the three spend the rest of the movie trying to find a way to get along.
Action is the obvious focus here, but the story is so nonsensical that the movie eventually deteriorates into a bunch of poorly conceived action set pieces. Writer/ Director Frank Cappello makes the rookie mistake of thinking more is always a good thing. It's not enough that we have the FBI going after a bunch of skinheads, but for whatever reason he feels the need to toss in other factions. It confuses everything. On top of that, there's the need to toss in sequences that are easily not within the movie's budget. If you can't stage a believable-looking plane hijack, don't include one in the first place. Filmmaking rule #1: Work with what you have, not what you wish you had.
But hey, it's got Russell Crowe, so that has to count for something, right?
This is Russell Crowe before he became Russell Crowe and Helen Slater after she was Helen Slater. I'd love to say Crowe shows flashes of his eventual award-winning self, but the script is so bad that even Sir Laurence Olivier would throw his hands up in frustration. Helen Slater's inclusion is pretty pointless. She's the obvious love interest, but her insertion into the plot is so random there's no time to build towards anything. I will, however, give the script credit for delivering some great banter between Slater and Crowe. Their debate on Star Trek captains is one of the film's better moments.
No Way Back is a bare-bones Blu-ray, so all it really has over a DVD release is the picture quality and sound. I haven't seen the original, so I can't speak for the actual transfer itself. I can, however, say this is one of the lower-quality Blu-ray releases I've seen. Colors are drab and scenes are generally dark. I can accept both as a stylistic choice, but there's little differentiation between colors. One black is just as black as the one next to it, which shouldn't happen. It's hard to pick out objects. The audio mix isn't much better. There's a certain "tin" quality to some of the gunfire and the dialogue is mucked up.
On one hand, I want to write off No Way Back as "just a cheesy action movie" and let if pass on that. At the same time, its possible for "a cheesy action flick" to tell a good story, the exact thing No Way Back doesn't do. It's got action, but not much else. No Way Back is a purchase only if you're trying to complete a Russell Crowe collection. Otherwise, make it a rental.
