Switchback has similar origins. It began in 1984 as a script called Going West in America, the first effort by 28-year-old film student Jeb Stuart. The screenplay didn't get made right away, but it got Stuart more work--within a decade he had put his name on Die Hard and The Fugitive and worked behind the scenes on a pile of other action movies. He never lost sight of his first baby, though, and when the project came out of turnaround for the umpteenth time in 1995, Stuart struck a deal to direct. Upon viewing the final product, however, one wonders why Stuart bothered.

Not that Switchback is a bad movie. In fact, it has some interesting ideas. Dennis Quaid stars as an FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer who has abducted his son. Meanwhile, an ex-doctor (Jared Leto) and a journeyman laborer (Danny Glover) travel West past the scattered crime scenes. Both have mysterious pasts, and either could be the killer, but Quaid's investigation of the duo is stuck in a small Texas town embroiled in a bitter sheriff's election.

The small touches--the election, and the interplay between Leto and Glover--are obviously what caught Hollywood's attention over a decade ago. The weaker spots--like the hackneyed and soft-headed serial killer thread, and a plot full of amazing coincidences and impossible holes--are why the script has gone unfilmed for 13 years. One wonders why Stuart didn't take a few minutes here and there to fix some of the problems. (Like maybe he could've come up with a reason why no one had been able to identify Quaid's son in the months since he'd been missing.)

Of course, that's the problem with pet projects--their masters live with them so long that they have no perspective. The dirty secret of artistic creation is that it's not really a finite process: It ends when the deadline arrives or when the creator gets tired of sweating. With unlimited time and unlimited patience, a writer could go on and on, putting in whatever happens to be on his mind on any given day.