Actually, it's more like "Groundhog Day" meets "Thelma & Louise", hooks up with "The Final Countdown" and takes "Back to the Future" along for the ride. A young woman experiences car trouble on a remote Texas highway, and gets picked up by a sleazy thug and his girlfriend. People die, things blow up. Luckily our heroine is a Chicago cop, so she manages to escape...to a secret government testing site where a scientist has been developing a time machine. Far fetched? Sure, but it IS a time travel movie after all. The machine enables the cop to go back ten minutes into the past, so she can try to rectify the situation. Kylie Travis makes quite an impression as the resourceful cop. Actually, I missed the opening credits. I thought I was watching Brenda Bakke, from TV's "American Gothic". The ressemblance is striking. If you like Brenda, you'll love Kylie. Anyway, James Belushi is fairly effective as the low-life killer who enjoys tormenting his girlfriend (a surprisingly unglamorous Shannon Whirrey, star of all those racy erotic thrillers on Cinemax). "Retroactive" lacks the inventiveness of "Back to the Future" and, at under 90 minutes, it's a little short. The "Groundhog Day"-style re-enactments could have used more dialog and less screeching tires, and Frank Whaley is a touch bland as the scientist. I'm surprised he took such a minor role in the first place. Having said all that, if you enjoy time travel movies, "Retroactive" is certainly worth a look.
Review of Retroactive
