Edward Burns' third feature film after THE BROTHERS McCULLEN (6.5/10) and SHE'S THE ONE. This one's also sprinkled with beers, Irish stuff and beautiful and confused people dealing with relationships.

PLOT:
Charlie (Burns) returns to his hometown after three years away, and wants to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend Claudia (Holly). Unfortunately for him, Claudia has been living with Michael (Bon Jovi), a childhood friend of Charlie's, for those three years, and doesn't know exactly what to do. The dilemma she faces is the crux of this film.

CRITIQUE:
Nice little character study that revolves around the feelings of friends, lovers and family. Enjoyable enough, but not enough meat in which to grind your viewer teeth. The characters and actors in the movie were all very believable and interesting to watch, with Jon Bon Jovi beginning to show some real signs of a thespian in the making. Holly had never really impressed me before, but does a decent job with the task that she's been assigned in this film.

The movie's plot is not the most original in the world, in that it deals with people asking themselves the proverbial question or whether or not they should leave their hometown for opportunities elsewhere, and whether or not one could ever really come home again (done much better
in BEAUTIFUL GIRLS (8.5/10), but then again, Hollywood hasn't exactly bent over backwards to conceive many new theatrical ideas over the past few years. Other than that, the little town is very quaint and shows extreme signs of "the comfortable life" for many of its satisfied inhabitants, while also demonstrating the lack of ambition or foresight in many of those same people.

The soundtrack was fine (but can someone please tell Bruce Springsteen to stop playing on soundtracks!!), as was the length of the picture. On the down side, no memorable scenes made it onto this cinematic menu, and there was one too many montage shots with music in the
background (usually a sign of a weak script). Two little things did bug me a bit. One, there is one major continuity error during one of the pivotal emotional scenes, in which Holly is bawling her eyes out one second, dry another, and then blubbering the next. Somewhat distracting.
Also, and much more irritating, was the fact that every single character seems to be drinking a beer or taking a smoke in every single scene in this movie. I mean, it's incredible!! Does anybody really drink a Budweiser in a laundry mat, for God's sakes?!?! Oh well.

Overall, the movie is nice to watch with your "significant other", so that you could ponder the "what would you do's" after it's finished, but not much more than that.

Little Known Facts about this film and its stars:
Working title for this film was LONG TIME, NOTHING NEW.
Edward Burns worked as a production assistant on TV's Entertainment Tonight for four years.
Lauren Holly turned down the Courteney Cox role in ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (7.5/10).
Blythe Danner is Gwyneth Paltrow's mom.
 

                    No Looking Back
                         Reviewed by: Ken Eisner

                         "I thought movies were supposed to be like life with the
                         boring bits taken out," said the unfortunate friend I dragged
                         to No Looking Back. "But this one had it the other way
                         around." Not only does writer-director-star Edward Burns
                         limit his latest tour de force to life's most uninspired
                         moments, he repeats these hiccups ad nauseam, then has
                         his characters comment on them for good measure.

                         Burns's debut film, the no-budget Brothers McMullen,
                         hinted at an amiable comic talent, in a low-rent Irish Woody
                         Allen sort of way, but his bloated, supremely unfunny She's
                         the One proved his meagre skills would be undone by
                         money. Here, he's stripped things back to what he must
                         view as a scrappy kitchen-sink drama, and it turns out to be
                         the most sophomoric effort of the bunch. The tale, filmed in
                         the Rockaway Beach area of New York's Queens borough,
                         centres on waitress Claudia (Lauren Holly), her boyfriend
                         Michael (Jon Bon Jovi), and her former beau Charlie
                         (Burns), a smirking, self-satisfied loser who shows up three
                         years after dumping her and heading out for a failed stay in
                         California.

                         Soon, it's apparent that Charlie intends to woo Claudia back,
                         not that we're given the slightest inkling of what makes either
                         of them tick or why their choices matter. Still, at least
                         Charlie's mission rates as a hobby when compared with the
                         duds in this blue-collar, white-skinned suburb, where no one
                         has anything like a personal interest-unless you count
                         chain-smoking, knocking back Budweisers, and yelling at
                         each other like a village full of Joe Pescis. Oh, yeah, they all
                         like Bruce Springsteen.

                         As a writer, Burns has a tin ear for dialogue, even when it's
                         mostly cribbed from other movies about ill-spoken yokels.
                         As a nasal-voiced, one-note actor, he seems to think his
                         odious Charlie is a charmer, delivering romantic pleas that
                         are all variations on "It's, y'know, different now." And much
                         as the worn-looking Holly, with her eyebrows plucked and
                         her hair harshly frosted, tries to wring some tangible emotion
                         out of her poorly drawn character, there's little she can do to
                         save lines such as "I want a different life than the one we
                         have so much." We mean what she knows.

                         If this static, poorly lit film has any saving grace, it's Bon
                         Jovi's low-key performance as the decent guy Burns
                         decided to make the chump. But c'mon, who puts Jon Bon
                         Jovi in the Ralph Bellamy role? Only someone mistakenly
                         sure that his own charisma will outshine everyone else's for
                         miles around, including that of Blythe Danner and a handful
                         of other good actors wasted in undeveloped roles. But you
                         know what, Ed? You're not that cool, and very few people
                         will be looking forward to your next cinematic wank.
 
  No Looking Back (M)

  Reviewer:
  David Stratton
 

  EDWARD Burns is an intriguing actor-director. Like Hal Hartley, he locates his
  small-scale dramas about dysfunctional families in the less known backwaters of New
  York State; but he is less mannered and intellectual than Hartley, and he himself portrays
  crucial characters in his films.

  So strong has been his impact as an actor in his own productions, The Brothers McMullen
  (1995) and She's the One (1996) that Steven Spielberg cast him as a key member of the
  patrol in Saving Private Ryan, a film in which he gave an impressive portrayal of rugged
  all-Americanism. In the three films he has directed to date, Burns seems to be exploring
  the lives of people he knows well.

  The Brothers McMullen, which was produced for only $25,000 and, after being picked
  up by Fox Searchlight, grossed $10 million in North America alone, making it, according
  to Variety, the most profitable film of 1995, dealt with the sexual problems of three
  Irish-Americans, sons of a wife-beating alcoholic father.

  Though the focus of the film was on the brothers, the women were given some of the best
  lines ("you can't be Catholic and have a healthy sex life," complains one frustrated female
  character).

  In She's the One, set in a backwater of Brooklyn, the family was again Irish-American
  and this time there were only two brothers, both involved with the same woman (an early
  role for Cameron Diaz). Those films dealt poignantly and truthfully with men who find it
  hard to be faithful and women who feel betrayed.

  Burns's third feature, No Looking Back, is more of the same. This time the setting – a
  highly evocative one – is Rockaway Beach, NY. The houses run down to the water, but
  this is a doleful, windswept, bleak, wintry place, with its clapboard houses in need of fresh
  coats of paint and its dreary local eatery (Chappys Diner), and the bar, seemingly the
  only sources of social life.

  Claudia (Lauren Holly) lives here with Michael (Jon Bon Jovi). They are not married, but
  they are basically engaged, and they seem happy together.

  Claudia works in the diner and Michael in the local garage, but money is not exactly
  flowing into their household; and, though Michael is highly personable, he is not the most
  thoughtful of partners – it's Claudia who always puts the garbage out.

  Claudia's father left her mother (Blythe Danner) some time ago; she is convinced he will
  change his mind one day soon and come back to her, but Claudia and her sister (Connie
  Britton) know he is living with a younger woman and is never coming back. Life for
  Claudia and Michael is one of routine; they visit the bar most evenings and drink with
  friends.

  There is not much else to do. And yet Claudia, who is entering her 30s, feels there ought
  to be something more, something she's missing. And then Charlie (Burns) comes back to
  Rockaway. Before he left for California three years ago Claudia was his girlfriend; in
  fact, she was pregnant by him, but he left before she had the abortion which has clearly
  traumatised her.

  Now he is back, back for her. He wants to take her away, maybe to California, at least far
  away from Rockaway. What should she do? Michael loves her, but he is not exactly
  exciting; Charlie wounded her, but he has come back for her now . . . The choices faced
  by Claudia are at the core of this bitterly honest film, which completes a sort of trilogy on
  the stunted lives of families living on the fringes of New York.

  As in the other films, the performances are almost perfect. Holly painfully reveals, layer
  by layer, the dilemmas facing Claudia, her frustrations, longings, hopes and fears. Bon
  Jovi accurately conveys the cheerful shallowness of Michael, a nice, thoughtless guy
  whose horizons are strictly limited. And Burns, in the pivotal role of the charmingly
  manipulative Charlie, is just right. Surburban America, as depicted in Burns's three films,
  is certainly a depressing place, but it will be recognisable to anyone who ever yearned to
  escape from the confines of their safe environment into the dangers and promises of the
  outside world.

No Looking Back

A Film Review by James Berardinelli

The working title for No Looking Back was Long Time, Nothing New, and rarely has there been a more apt name for a motion picture. Even though this movie clocks in at a relatively skinny 96 minutes, it seems to run long enough to engulf two Titanics. Writer/director Edward Burns has trotted out a hackneyed storyline, the trajectory of which will be instantly recognizable to anyone who hasn't spent their life in seclusion. Instead of tweaking the formula a little to invigorate the
proceedings, Burns is content to allow the film to ramble aimlessly towards its irritatingly predictable conclusion, offering precious few momentary pleasures along the way.

No Looking Back is dominated by three very dislikable characters whose constant presence on the screen is painful. The most appropriate ending would have been a triple suicide, and the sooner, the better. Alas, that's not the case, and those who stick with this film for its entire length will be forced to endure the prolonged company of this wretched trio. And, to further depress audiences, Burns has shot the entire film on cold, rainy days in a gray New York State beach town. Peeks of sunshine are few and far between. No wonder the characters are all so miserable.

First of all, we have Charlie (Burns), a Generation X slacker who abandoned his girlfriend three years ago after she had an abortion, then spent some time bumming around in California before deciding to come home. That girlfriend is Claudia (Lauren Holly), and, after picking up the pieces of her life following Charlie's departure, she has moved on, shacking up with one of Charlie's old school buddies, Mike (Jon Bon Jovi). The two have a comfortable relationship, but it's apparent to even a blind person that they're not right for each other. Claudia years for some spice in her life; Mike wants to settle down and have children. Then Charlie re-enters the mix. So who, if anyone, will Claudia end up with?

Who cares?? No Looking Back goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure that we're not especially interested in the outcome f the romantic triangle. So what if no one finds happiness -- these characters don't deserve it anyway, especially after wasting 90 minutes of our time. They aren't real people -- they're a writer's construct stumbling through a too-obvious storyline. They should know the ending as well as we do. And Burns should have given his audience more credit and presented them with a plot that at least offered a surprise or two.

Another frustrating thing about No Looking Back is that Burns has populated the film with a group of potentially-interesting supporting characters. Blythe Danner is solid as Claudia's housebound mother, Connie Britton is suitably high-strung as Claudia's neurotic sister, and Jennifer Esposito is eye-catching as a bartender in search of a little romance. Sadly, all we get is quick glimpses into their lives, although a movie about any of them would have been far more intriguing than the story Burns has chosen to tell.

None of the lead performers are going to wow critics with their thespian attributes. Edward Burns is pushing the edge of his limited range here. Jon Bon Jovi shows more acting ability than one might reasonably expect from a singer branching into a different career, but he could still use a little polish. The worst case is Lauren Holly, who presents a completely bland Claudia. As portrayed here, she's hardly the kind of woman who would inspire even a moment's interest, not to mention undying love.
Burns' ex, the monumentally untalented Maxine Bahns, would have been hard-pressed to do a less inspired job.

When he released The Brothers McMullen, Edward Burns was revered as the wunderkind of the 1995 Sundance Film Festival (Robert Redford has apparently stuck with him -- the aging actor/director executive produced this mess). Two films and three short years later, the luster has faded. Some movie makers have only one good film in them. With back-to-back duds like She's the One and No Looking Back to follow the delightful Brothers, Burns is beginning to look like a member of that undistinguished club.
 

from the Austine Chronicle
     No Looking Back
                                                            REVIEWED: 05-03-98

     Surely there's more to life than choosing Mr. Right; that is? unless you happen to be a
     woman stuck in an Edward Burns movie. Actually, the men in No Looking Back have pretty
     limited interests and activities as well. Everyone in this film's wintry oceanside East coast town
     (an amalgam of the Rockaways on Long Island and the Jersey shore) is a hard-working,
     blue-collar laborer who works overtime shifts and relaxes by kicking back a few with friends
     and loved ones at the local tavern. It's as though they were all characters in a Bruce
     Springsteen song, and indeed several songs by New Jersey's poet laureate dot the soundtrack.
     Ever since the extraordinary success of his first film, The Brothers McMullen (an extremely
     low-budget production that reportedly became the most profitable film of 1995), triple-threat
     writer/director/actor Burns has been unjustly saddled with the attempt to best himself. He
     didn't achieve it with his sophomore romance She's the One; he's not likely to have much
     more box-office success with the muddled No Looking Back. Though the acting is solid and
     the physical milieu is evocative, the characters are thin and unbelievable. Holly plays Claudia,
     a woman in her early 30s who works as a waitress in a diner and has a longstanding
     relationship with her live-in boyfriend Michael (Bon Jovi). Michael's cute (he's Jon Bon Jovi,
     after all), he's very hard-working, he's dependable, responsible, and hot to marry Claudia, but
     she, for some reason, deflects his proposals. The film opens as Charlie (Burns) climbs off a
     bus and back into the town he left without a word three years ago. No one's too excited to see
     him this time around -- not his mother, not his old girlfriend Claudia, and not his old best
     friend Michael. Before long, this part-time gas station attendant is hitting on Claudia again and
     she's just bored enough with her life (and the fearful certainty of its dull future) that she pays
     attention. Exactly what she sees in this ne'er-do-well who abandoned her once and now has
     only vague promises of making a fresh start in Florida is unclear. Burns is wonderful as the
     seductive bad boy, but by casting himself in this role he leaves little doubt as to the story's
     ultimate narrative progression. Holly, however, imbues Claudia with too much intelligence to
     make this story about a woman with zero options believable. As supporting family characters,
     Danner as Claudia's mother and Britton as her sister provide some of the film's edgier
     moments. With this third film, Burns for the first time has scripted a romantic tale from the
     perspective of a woman but again the dramatic arc is reduced to nothing more complicated
     than He's the One.

                                                           --Marjorie Baumgarten

No Looking Back: More character dreck from
                                          Burns
                                        by Mark Walsh

                     As one of Hollywood’s new multi-talented "young lions," Edward Burns has
                     demonstrated enormous potential in the wake of his debut The Brothers
                     McMullen. This effort and its follow-up, the bigger budget-smaller return She’s
                     the One bore witness to Burns talent for strong, character-driven stories using
                     everyday, ordinary people. No Looking Back, his latest effort, promises more of
                     the same.
                                No Looking Back takes place in a small working-class town on the
                     Atlantic Coast. It is a grim, gray facade of desolation that seems to have had the
                     hopes and dreams crushed out of it. The feeling is translated to its denizens, who
                     work the dead-end jobs as they go about their meaningless lives. These are the
                     surroundings where Claudia (Lauren Holly) and Michael (Jon Bon Jovi) share their
                     lives.
                                Claudia very much mirrors the soul of her hometown in that she once had
                     dreams of something more, but those dreams vanished along with her first love
                     Charlie (Edward Burns), who callously abandoned her three years before. Now
                     Charlie has returned and he has his heart set on winning Claudia back.
                                Over the course of the next few weeks, during which the entire movie takes
                     place, Charlie schemes to convince Claudia to leave Michael and run away with
                     him. Although she is content with Michael, being a good man and all, he has no
                     ambition and is quite happy to stay in their hometown for the rest of their lives,
                     living the same routine. When Charlie returns, she begins to doubt her future with
                     Michael. Her old dreams (which are never disclosed to the audience), resurface.
                     Despite being unable to trust him, she sees that Charlie represents an escape from
                     the drudgery of her current existence. She is forced to decide whether to stay with
                     one or leave with the other.
                                Holly is effective in depicting Claudia’s quiet desperation, playing the fading
                     beauty who is rapidly approaching the point of no return in her life. Bon Jovi
                      continues to surprise as the   unambitious Michael, showing
                     restraint and believability as he   fearfully watches Claudia slipping
                     away from him. Burns is also right    on the money, playing his usual
                     roguishly charming self. Throughout    the film, the performances are quite
                    commendable. Unfortunately, the    writing is not on the same level.
                                No Looking Back suffers from its unimpressive storyline. It’s unclear why
                     Claudia would even give Charlie the time of day after hurting her so badly. All he
                     can offer her is an uncertain future with no guarantees. On the other hand Michael,
                     who knows what Charlie is doing, does little to convince Claudia she could be
                     happy with him. There is also a subplot involving Claudia’s father. This angle had
                     possibilities, but as a writer Burns chooses not to go there. It may have been more
                     interesting to focus the film on this aspect of her life, as opposed to the
                     Charlie/Michael dilemma.
                                No Looking Back had potential but fails in the end because it doesn’t
                     follow the more interesting parts of its characters lives. In fact, it might have been
                     better off without Charlie entirely. I was more interested in how Claudia reacts to
                     her father (who is only mentioned, but is never seen nor heard), how she
                     sympathized with what he had done, desired very much to do the same thing, and
                     yet hated him for doing it. Perhaps Burns will remake this film as he did The
                     Brothers McMullen, and give this element some more focus instead of the
                     uninspiring direction he chose here. That is the story I would have like to have
                     seen. (Mark Walsh)
 
 

NO LOOKING BACK
 
        In "No Looking Back," Edward Burns paints what is probably a realistic picture of life in a small town in New Jersey,      but it's such a drab, depressing image that it's hard to watch. Claudia (Lauren Holly) works as a waitress at the local   diner and lives comfortably with her longtime boyfriend Michael (Jon Bon Jovi). He's an attractive, hard-working,   reliable guy but a bit uninspiring. Claudia, if not exactly happy, seems content with her lot, until her old flame Charlie
     (Edward Burns) comes back to town. He disappeared three years before, just as Claudia was having a secret abortion.
     Charlie is the antithesis of Michael: self-absorbed, unfaithful, callous and unable to hold down a job. But he's exciting.
     In a few short weeks, Charlie manages to turn the whole town upside down and reawaken Claudia's childhood dreams   that are bigger than both her present relationship and the town.
        "No Looking Back" will suffer from obvious comparisons with Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy," which also focuses on   the romantic entanglements of three friends living in New Jersey. But the similarity ends there: while Smith's characters  are complex and continually exploring the boundaries of their sexuality, Burns' trio seems two-dimensional and confined   to working-class stereotypes. Burns may be better served focusing on character development in his next movie instead
     of trying to divide his time between writing, acting, producing and directing. -Lisa Osborne

BY GEMMA FILES

    Claudia (Lauren Holly) -- born and raised in the dull, grey     oceanside town of Rockaway Beach, New Jersey -- has spent the 10 years since graduating from high school   stuck in a serious holding pattern. She works as a waitress, plans to marry her boyfriend Michael (Jon Bon Jovi)
    and lives each new week almost exactly like the last: "Same shit, different day," as she tells a friend. Inarticulately,   Claudia knows she wants something more than what she has... or something different, at least. What she doesn't    know is how to begin doing anything about it.

    Yes, folks, we're back in patented Edward Burns territory here -- a quiet little movie about quiet little   working-class, East Coast people, much like his two previous offerings (1995 Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize   winner The Brothers McMullen, 1996's She's the One), except for two substantial differences: the concentration  on a single protagonist rather than an ensemble cst; and the concentrated effort to explore situations from a   female point of view.

    "Originally, the guys were very much the focus of the script I had in mind," Burns tells me at his suite at the Four   Seasons. "I was gonna call it Long Time, Nothing New -- it'd be about how you feel like the whole town's  conspiring to make you relive the exact same life your Dad had, and that's OK, as long as it's OK with you. But  honestly, I got through a couple of drafts and I was bored -- I felt like I'd done this before, at least twice. I shifted  my emphasis over to Claudia, and everything fell into place.

    "So then began this interesting process of cross-checking. Women friends would read the script and go, 'Whoa,  Eddie, no no no. A woman would not act like this. A woman would never say this particular line.' All through the  shoot, Lauren and Blythe Danner, who plays Claudia's Mom, were constantly beating me up over what they   considered the bullshit elements." He smiles. "It was a little painful... but helpful."

    What follows is a study in literally workmanlike filmmaking -- nothing particularly inspired, just a well-observed   character piece whose elements sneak up on you sideways, making you care about Claudia's dilemma even when  you can see its resolution already written on Holly's face. Like a classic Springsteen song, No Looking Back   trades on the iconography of the most basic freedom the U.S. has on offer -- every citizen's unspoken right to just   get in their car and drive away from anything they don't want to deal with.

    "As much as this is Claudia's story, it's also about dead ends in general," says Burns. "For whatever reason,  Americans from the East Coast really dig that individual quest for self-determination vibe, and so do I. So as much  as I hope I'm trying to do something different with No Looking Back, I also hope I'm still doing what I've been  doing all along. Kind of speaking for the people I grew up with, you know?"

    He pauses. "And I guess maybe I have a lock on the subject, 'cause it's not like I see anybody else trying to do it.    So far."

No Looking Back

Latest film from writer-director Edward Burns features Lauren Holly, rock star Jon Bon Jovi
 

Unlike his last film, She's The One, Edward Burns' latest picture, No Looking Back, is dark, brooding, and depressing with little to be happy about. The small, seaside New Jersey town where the movie is set is perpetually covered by thick, rainy clouds, and the townspeople get most of their entertainment by congregating nightly at a bar where they gossip incessantly about each other's spouses or significant others.

Lauren Holly plays Claudia, a twentysomething waitress at a small diner who goes through the motions of being happily involved with Michael (rock star Jon Bon Jovi), who came to her rescue several years ago when she was dumped by her ex-boyfriend, Charlie (Burns). Michael is hard-working, dedicated to Claudia, and deeply committed to marrying her and starting a family. Claudia, on the other hand, is blissfully non-commital. She's happy, but she's not. She loves Michael, but she doesn't. She puts up a good facade, until Charlie walks back into her life and promptly turns the town upside down.

In the hands of Burns the writer, Charlie is an amoral, opportunistic, beer-drinking loser who sets his eyes on anything in a skirt. He's back in town after drifting around the country for several years, doing odd jobs but never finding his niche, or an angle he could use to get rich quick. He arrives in town an a beat-up bus near a strip of road by the beach, and walks back home to his old house where his mother still lives. Suffice to say, she's not happy to see him. She knows darn well he's only back because he's run out of money. Charlie really only has one thing on his mind: Claudia.

Eventually the two run into one another. And it's clear from the beginning Claudia is still smitten with the smooth-talking drifter who left her life in shambles. As high school sweethearts, they were quite an item in town -- despite Charlie's obvious mistreatment of her. When he left suddenly, Michael was there to pick up the pieces, and gave Claudia something she didn't have before: stability, and genuine affection. For all of his good qualities, Michael apparently has two that Claudia can't stand: his obsession with marriage and children, and his boring personality. When Charlie reappears, he makes a bee-line to Claudia, and casually confronts Michael about their relationship. Michael insists they are on the verge of marriage, they just haven't set a date yet. That sets off an alarm in Charlie's head. If Claudia and Michael aren't officially engaged, that means Claudia is a free, targetable woman.

No Looking Back is not Burns' best work. The story line is predicatable, and Holly's Claudia appears to have every intention of flying back into her old beau's arms as soon as possible. Though Charlie caused severe emotional trauma in her life (getting her pregnant, then fleeing town after a hasty abortion), she quickly forgets Michael. There are other powerful sub-plots at work in the film that Burns has woven nicely into the fabric of the story. Claudia's mom, played by Blythe Danner, has been locked in her seaside house for several months -- never leaving after her husband disappeared one day without warning. Their marriage was apparently on the rocks, but Claudia's mother ignored the signs -- never taking her husband seriously when he said he wanted a
divorce. As the film progresses, she slowly comes to realize that he's not coming back and she'd better get on with her life. Claudia's mom, freed from that depressing reality, also realizes Claudia and her father are very much alike. Claudia's mom even knows what's going on with Charlie, but reserves her best advice for the end of the film. Claudia's sister, Kelly (Connie Britton), a single-mom who lives at home, also realizes what Charlie is after and tries to steer her sister clear, but fails, of course.

For his part, rock star Jon Bon Jovi turns in a commendable performance as Michael, and he's a much better actor that most people give him credit for. Burns, too, is terrific as Charlie the wiseass, always looking out for himself, keeping his efforts focused on who he can get a fast buck from, and who he can take to bed.

The film is rated R. It's produced by Polygram Filmed Entertainment and distributed by Twentieth Century
Fox.

Characters shine in small-town
            tale

                        By LIZ BRAUN
                          Toronto Sun

               No Looking Back is a movie that works like an
            illustrated Bruce Springsteen song.
 
             It's all about small town life, love lost and dreams
            forfeited. That small town is even a shore town, at that.
 
             This is a first dramatic feature from filmmaker Ed Burns
            (She's The One), who wrote, directed, produced and
            stars in the movie along with Lauren Holly and Jon Bon
            Jovi.
 
             In No Looking Back, Holly stars as Claudia, the main
            focus of the story. She's a waitress at a local diner. She
            lives with her boyfriend, Michael (Jon Bon Jovi), a solid,
            hard-working guy who loves her very much.
 
             Her life is pleasant, if uneventful. Something has
            motivated Claudia toward safety and security rather than
            passion, and that something is her old boyfriend, Charlie
            (Burns).
 
             Uh, oh! Charlie's coming back to town.
 
             While the obvious love triangle gains momentum in the
            background, Claudia visits her mom (Blythe Danner) --
            who has recently been deserted by Claudia's father --
            and her sister Kelly (Connie Britton). They talk about
            men. They talk about love. They talk about men.
 
             Claudia sees Charlie at the diner. Charlie goes to
            Claudia's to fix the car.
 
             Claudia and Charlie see each other at the laundromat.
 
             (Ed Burns, meanwhile, can deny all those tabloid rumors
            about himself and Lauren Holly, but No Looking Back
            only gets great when the two of them are on screen
            together. That is some melting chemistry.)
 
             Claudia and Charlie eventually fall back into bed
            together, but not before there have been lots of good,
            yearning tunes in the background and lots of offhand
            gazing out to sea.
 
             After the requisite fighting, recriminations and whatnot,
            Claudia leaves town to pursue the dreams she thought she
            had given up long ago.
 
             What works in No Looking Back are the characters.
            Claudia is entirely believable and Holly gives a good
            performance, although she is wildly miscast. Women who
            look like Holly may grow up in small towns like this one,
            but they don't stay there much past puberty.
 
             The dialogue rings true and the story has its moments,
            but No Looking Back goes on too long. Here, a good
            slice o' life drama is permitted to become a veritable
            wedge o' life.
 
             Still, you can dance to it.
 

No Looking 
       Back
 
     Springsteen on Film  |   Robert Horton

      At a dramatic juncture in Copland, Sylvester
      Stallone's lonely sheriff is seen going back to his room
      and putting on a Bruce Springsteen record to relax.
      The audience laughed, and I experienced a moment
      of disorientation: had Springsteen become so uncool
      that the mere sound of one of his '80s tunes triggered
      a chortle? It took a few moments to realize that the
      joke was that Stallone was playing the record on a
      turntable rather than a CD player. The fact that I didn't
      get the joke at first reveals how old I am, since it
      obviously doesn't strike me as unusual to play music
      on a record player. I still carried away the nagging
      feeling that, with Springsteen's glory days behind him,
      the use of a Springsteen song in a movie might be
      seen as forced or corny by today's audience. We'll find
      out with No Looking Back, the new film written and
      directed by Edward Burns, which relies on a few
      Springsteen gems on its soundtrack. Not only are the
      songs fine, but they throw the weakness of Burns'
      movie into stark relief. "One Step Up" and "Valentine's
      Day" sound as strong and evocative and brutally
      honest as they ever did, lovely little vignettes of the
      heartbreaks of unthinkably ordinary people; Burns'
      movie feels slack and simplistic by comparison.

      The setting is a Jersey-esque seaside town, resolutely
      blue collar. It's the offseason, but then you get the idea
      that this place exists in a permanent offseason (nice
      early shot: rows and rows of parking spaces along a
      main drag, with not a car in sight). The movie is built
      on a triangle: Waitress Claudia (Lauren Holly) is with
      car mechanic Michael (Jon Bon Jovi), a decent guy
      who's never going anywhere. Her old beau Charlie
      (Burns) rolls back into town, having wandered around
      the country. He dumped her some years earlier, but he
      doesn't see why they can't just get back together
      again. So it's up to Claudia to decide: stick around,
      become seriously depressed like her housebound
      mom (Blythe Danner), or light out for the territory with
      this rakish and untrustworthy character.

      As a writer, Burns hits the appropriate buttons,
      sounding out enlightened chords around his
      lower-class heroine. As a director, he can't summon
      up any verve whatsoever. Like The Brothers
      McMullen and She's the One, this movie has
      occasionally charming exchanges and occasionally
      trite ones, but all of the action is lax, without the sort of
      thrumming cinematic energy that this sort of talkfest
      needs. Isolated scenes strike home, especially a
      parked-car conversation between Charlie and a girl
      he's picked up for the night. The girl, at least 10 years
      younger than Charlie, looks for some sign of a bond;
      he just wants to get laid before the sun comes up,
      which is soon. By showing a mean streak, Burns lets a
      little of the air out of his slick-backed, high-voiced
      hipster, a character he's in danger of overdoing in his
      movies.

      As for the rest, cliches abound. Every scene is
      punctuated by the presence of longneck Budweisers,
      which is either a) an accurate assessment of
      small-town dipsomania, b) egregious product
      placement, or c) the director desperately trying to liven
      up a scene by giving his actors something to do with
      their hands. While Jon Bon Jovi appears at home in
      his native environs (more so than in The Leading Man,
      say), he still doesn't have much of a character to play,
      and what there is he plays very, very minimally. I can't
      tell if Lauren Holly could have done more with her
      character if she'd had more to work with; she's got the
      right kind of disappointment in her face, but she
      doesn't suggest a restless Huck Finn inside her. A lot
      of the time -- a lot of the time --Burns has her staring
      out windows while songs play in the distance. Those
      songs are memorable. The movie's not.
 

Burns Without Jokes  |   Tom Keogh

      Bruce Springsteen's 1975 "Born to Run" album
      inspired many unproduced movies in the imaginations
      of its fans (as well as a few films that did actually make
      it to the screen, including Walter Hill's operatic
      Streets of Fire). For his new work, No Looking
      Back, Edward Burns uses Springsteen's music (and
      that of the rocker's wife, Patty Scialfa) to add thematic
      fuel and atmosphere to a classic American story
      about restless souls chafing against the constraints of
      a small hometown. Burns' interesting spin on the
      archetypal tale is that his characters are not kids
      looking to get out while they're young, but rather adults
      very near the end of their tattered, fading hopes.

      Burns' first full-fledged drama, No Looking Back
      stars Lauren Holly as Claudia, a waitress in a seaside
      town in New Jersey. Claudia lives with a mechanic,
      Michael (Jon Bon Jovi), a decent guy with whom she
      shares a routine existence hitting the same tavern
      almost every night. Michael wants to marry her, but
      Claudia fears she will never realize some undefined
      dream she has of a better life elsewhere. Besides,
      she's spooked: Her father recently abandoned her
      mother (Blythe Danner), who is still reeling from the
      shock.

      Entering this hornet's nest is Charlie (Burns), a
      ne'er-do-well coming back to the community after an
      absence of some years. Claudia's former squeeze,
      Charlie was the one who embodied freedom to her
      until he split, and now he's back knocking on her (and
      Michael's) door again. As tensions build inside this
      love triangle, no one acts with particular nobility --
      Claudia lies to Michael, Charlie and Michael get into
      pissing contests, etc. -- but each character is moving
      inextricably to a resolution of his or her uncertain
      destiny. The question of who will stay in this dreary
      hamlet on the shores of the Atlantic -- and who will
      take their chances in a bigger, less safe, more
      exciting world -- becomes genuinely interesting and
      contains a few twists.

      Apparently eager to broaden his own horizons as a
      filmmaker, Burns eschews the caustic comedy of his
      first two movies, The Brothers McMullen and She's
      the One, for a grittier, almost kitchen-sink approach
      with no laughs. The dialogue in his script, this time, is
      plain and flat, and he is determined to advance the
      story much less through spoken words than moody
      images, expressive actions, faces, settings, slices of
      life. A lot of detail feels almost uncomfortably
      authentic: The sullen countenance of Jersey girls, the
      constant presence of lit cigarettes and smoke, the
      dog-eat-dog attitude about friends stealing one
      another's lovers.

      Burns brought a headful of ideas and observations to
      No Looking Back, but he has also denied some of
      his proven strengths. The script is so deterministic
      there's barely room for the film to breathe, and that's a
      big surprise for a director who kicked off The
      Brothers McMullen with a revelation that sent
      characters flying off in unpredictable directions. It's not
      so much that one can foresee, in the first few minutes,
      how No Looking Back will end, but that the drama
      has an exacting, clockwork movement that drains it of
      life. It is, in fact, much like listening to a song you
      haven't heard before but which seems overly familiar
      in its forced craftsmanship.

      Sooner or later, Burns was going to have to explore
      his limits, and since he can't do it as a contract
      director churning out three films a year, he has to take
      his lumps in the glare of public expectations.
      Sometimes the best way of knowing what one does
      well is by doing something different and less
      successful. My hope is that Burns quickly gets back to
      the business of evolving into one of our most astute
      directors of comedy.
 

No Looking Back

                             Review by Elias Savada  

After such an exciting debut film and a lesser second effort, Edward Burns' third outing (after The
Brothers McMullen and She's the One) strikes out. That's it. Dudsville. The film's working title —
Long Time, Nothing New — smacks of the truth way beyond what the producers intended. Weak
script and limp characters make for a film bordering on the edge of boredom. The writer-director-star's return to the close-knit, blue-collar neighborhood setting that populated his earlier efforts, here a grim oceanside community and its dull populace, generally provide no excitement over the course of the film's blessedly short 96-minutes. At least there are a few Springsteen tunes to help defray the price of admission, but you'd be better off skipping the film and just buying the soundtrack CD.

Burns forever dwells on rainy sidewalks (as in cloudy relationships perhaps?) and bottles of Budweiser (the credits should read An Anheuser-Busch Production) as he tells the story of thirtyish Claudia (Lauren Holly), an indecisive waitress at Chappy's Diner, a local magnet for the town's working class clientele. She's living contentedly with steady boyfriend and factory worker
Michael (Jon Bon Jovi), until ex-flame Charlie Ryan (Burns) returns home in an emotionless effort to regain her affections. She's attracted to the aimless wanderer and unfulfilled dreamer, but cautious as he had unceremoniously abandoned after a bungled abortion three years earlier. Should she break from the mold that has become her perhaps dreary life? Or follow her dreams? It doesn't help the filmmaker's cause that he never really tells us what Claudia's aspirations beyond the town's limits might be.

After Charlie's gets a less than cheerful greeting from mom ("Welcome home ... and get that god damn Buick off the lawn!"), he takes a part time job down at the local gas station. Good thing it's not full time, as he mildly stalks Claudia at her house, the diner, the Laundromat, and all the local hangouts until she makes a reluctant decision to go with her hormones instead of her head. This despite the concern of her chain-smoking sister Kelly (Brothers McMullen alumni and Spin City co-star Connie Britton), who is also looking for love while caring for their chain-smoking spaced-out mom (Blythe Danner) as she pines for a (probably chain-smoking) husband that deserted the family for a life in Vegas.

An interesting scene here and there doesn't lift the tedious burden (on the viewer) felt through most of the film. Claudia's realization that she may live the rest of her life chained to the diner (a poignant snippet showing her filing her nails like the older waitress on the other end of the counter) and, later, that possible life on the road with Charlie may not be what she's looking for (a relatively silent post-coital episode in a local motel), at least show that the character can make a decision, even a half-hearted one. Holly's performance shows an attempt to imbue a confused stock character with some life, but it's Burns' fault that she is written so poorly. A tearful moment between Claudia and Michael reveals a great future for the expanding acting career for Bon Jovi, here providing the only three-dimension performance in the film, following up his previously debut in Moonlight and
Valentino (1995), and in other smaller pictures.

As Claudia's confusion seemingly lifts like the overcast skies drifting overheard (at one point in the film she's referred to as Cloudia), she makes one of those life-changing decisions that leave everything and everyone far behind. Hopefully she'll get on with her life and we, as filmgoers, won't be bothered with a monotonous sequel to find out she's found peace and happiness in
Texas, working as a waitress in some small town diner.