By failing to kill Anne as he was hired to do, Milo has marked himself for death, and the two flee together to an isolated farm that Milo owns. Avoca's men track them there, and they realize that in order to be free, they must return and confront their pursuers. They concoct a plan leaving Avoca, Carelli, and their men dead. Anne and Milo escape together to a new life. The production was marred with difficulties between Foster and Hopper. The differences began on the first day of filming of Foster in the shower scene. Foster, dissatisfied with the scene yelled "cut" which angered Hopper, who informed her to never do that again. Later, according to Hopper in an interview with Charlie Rose, Foster warned Meryl Streep by phone several times to avoid Hopper who was very keen on working with her. Streep never returned his calls. Hopper stated ""It blew what I thought at the time was a go project a few years ago. Cause Meryl suddenly said no. She [Foster] thought that I had this AA mentality where I was really just doing this sober drunk or something." During a Q&A with Richard Peña following the screening of "The Beaver", Foster later stated "I worked with an actor-director who was a major pain. It was very difficult for me. Very difficult." The original screenplay was written by Rachel Kronstadt Mann, then re-written by Ann Louise Bardach, who was hired by Hopper and producer Steven Reuther. During the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, Hopper hired Alex Cox to do another polish while the film was shooting. Hopper released a director's cut of the film in the United States on cable television titled Backtrack, which runs 18 minutes longer than the theatrical version. The film wasn't well received by critics. "Variety" wrote: "Somewhere in here is a dark, sassy picture, but the final product is more like a jigsaw with half the pieces. Apart from Foster who's strong, shrewd and sexy, thesping is vaudeville all the way. Pesci rants and raves, Stockwell shows a nice line in a low-key comedy, Ward looks like he hasn't been shown the whole script, and Hopper as a go at Humphrey Bogart in shades". Greg Wroblewski wrote: "It's a mediocre film, with often illogical, even incomprehensible plot twists and poor character development".