🎥 Backtrace (2018)Â
Backtrace is a crime thriller that follows a man suffering from amnesia who becomes the key to recovering stolen money after a violent bank robbery gone wrong.
The film opens with a tense heist in which a group of thieves robs a bank, but the job quickly turns deadly. During the chaos, MacDonald (Matthew Modine) is shot in the head and loses his memory. The stolen money disappears, and he becomes the only surviving suspect.
Years later, MacDonald is locked away in a high-security psychiatric ward, still unable to recall who he is or where the money went. Enter Detective Sykes (Sylvester Stallone), a weary but determined investigator who’s spent years trying to close the case. However, before Sykes can get answers, MacDonald is broken out of the facility by Lucas (Ryan Guzman), a mysterious accomplice working for powerful figures who also want the missing cash.
To recover his memory, MacDonald is injected with an experimental drug designed to unlock repressed memories. As fragments of his past begin to resurface — including flashes of the robbery and the people involved — he realizes he’s caught between two sides: those who want the truth and those willing to kill to keep it buried.
Detective Sykes and FBI Agent Franks (Christopher McDonald) pursue MacDonald and his captors, leading to a dangerous confrontation as everyone races to uncover the location of the stolen fortune.
In the end, MacDonald must face the truth about his own role in the heist and decide whether to redeem himself or give in to the violent world he’s tried to forget.
🎬 About the Film
Released in 2018 and directed by Brian A. Miller, Backtrace is a low-budget action-thriller filmed in Georgia. It blends crime, mystery, and psychological elements, featuring Stallone in a supporting role as the moral anchor of the story — a cop determined to find justice even as corruption surrounds him.
While the movie received mixed-to-negative reviews for its pacing and plot complexity, it remains notable for pairing Stallone with Matthew Modine and offering a dark, reflective tone about memory, guilt, and redemption.
