Backpay

There’s an old saying that “payback is a bitch.” Filmmaker/actor Mike Gallant’s new indie film Backpay is a revenge/extortion tale gone sour, proving that trying to get said payback can just as challenging for the ones dishing the revenge as the one who receives it. 

Mike Gallant stars (and also wrote, directed, and edited the film) as Steve Walker, a down-on-his-luck father who hatches an extortion scheme with his old buddy/former cop Murphy Davidson (played by Dwain Murphy). They plan to bust into a wild party thrown by Steve’s former boss/politician Peter Freeman (Jason Pennell), and blackmail him with a hard drive of incriminating material, in order to break into Peter’s safe that is full of valuables. The plan goes to hell in a handbasket fairly early on. 

Before the madness, we see flashbacks to different points in time of Steve’s relationship with his out-of-his-league wife from Mexico, Dawn (Seled Calderon). The movie kicks off with the flirty “honeymoon phase,” all the way to the rocky road of parenthood and the hardships of not making enough money to cover essential things such as daycare. 

It’s at that time when Steve happens to run into Murphy at the bar Dawn works at, that is until she’s canned by her manager (Shreya Patel) for a misunderstanding, further compounding the family’s money problems. Desperate, Steve asks Murphy to join in on the heist, which Murphy agrees to, but only if he’s the one who gets to plan it all. 

A curly-haired man and a woman in a bunny mask at the wild party in Backpay.

“They plan to bust into a wild party thrown by Steve’s former boss/politician…and blackmail him with a hard drive of incriminating material…”

I love this cast, including Golden Madison as Ximena, who turns out to be a huge wrench in Steve and Murphy’s heist/revenge plan. Steve feels like Peter still owes him for all the work he did to help him get elected and for doing extra work that he wasn’t paid for. I think a lot of people can sympathize with Steve’s plight, even though Peter does make some good points about Steve being better than to stoop himself so low. 

The script and direction from Gallant kept me invested the entire way through, which can be difficult for an independent movie on a budget to do. The dialogue was interesting and real, and so was the acting from the aforementioned cast, which is usually another weak spot for indie films. 

Even the small details, such as using Marvel masks with some spray paint on as disguises for the heist, were nice little touches for me. I get a chuckle out of the Gen X references, like how one of the valuables turns out to be a Michael Jordan rookie card. 

I feel like I need to do a Mike Gallant retrospective after this to see if his other movies are as entertaining as Backpay, because it feels like he has a knack for making films without a big budget. That’s definitely the mark of a talented filmmaker. Backpay proves that revenge is not easy, but at least it’s fun to watch go so terribly wrong. 

For screening information, visit the Backpay official website.