Kolleen’s back! Try as I might it’s so hard for me to keep up with these. Don’t worry though, the next few movies after this I didn’t care for/slept through completely, so that’ll save some time!

This is such a funny little movie. In it, Spader plays twin brothers, but they don’t share any screen time so the film makers don’t have to do any of that special film magic. How can you tell the brothers apart, you may ask? Well. One is smart so he has glasses and one is a bad boy so he has an earring and a scar.

Still, you get double the Spader bang for your buck with Jack’s Back, and as I said on Letterboxd ages ago, imagine the possibilities!

In it, Spader 1 plays John Westford, a doctor who is well liked and handsome and social justice oriented and concerned by the recent killings that are copycatting, of all people, Jack the Ripper, even though we are in Los Angeles and not England or wherever. Anyway his coworker begins to panic because it’s looking like he’s doing those killings, so he chokes John to death and then hangs him to make it look like he killed himself, thereby framing him for the killings!!!! It’s an upsetting scene!

Almost everyone seems satisfied with this but then!!! Spader 2, “Rick”, shows up to tell everyone John couldn’t have been the killer because Rick has been having some I Know Who Killed Me style premonitions about John’s death. Then he and John’s coworker and would-be girlfriend get reallll snuggly about it while trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Look, this movie is a silly good time. Two Spaders, and one has an earring. You literally can’t go wrong. I found this quote about it from the late, great Roger Ebert that I quite appreciated:

But apart from the pleasures of the plot, what makes Jack’s Back worth seeing is the work of Spader, a young actor who I believe has as much promise as anyone of his generation.

When he was right, he was right!

This is absolutely on Tubi. In fact, every time I look up a James Spader movie they insist on making sure I know Jack’s Back is there for the picking. Give it a whirl. It’s fun!