Director: Andrew Davis
Cast: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Andreas Katsulas*
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: What’s not to like? The plot is a tightly-wound tension deliver device that were a hallmark of Davis’ action films in the 90s. In an era where plenty of TV shows from the 60s were being re-created for the big screen, this could have been a real chore to sit through, but it isn’t. If you have a problem with some of the light implausibilities, then action thrillers might not be your thing. It’s also a weird twist of Hollywood fate that Davis hasn’t made a dozen more films in the last thirty years that were unassailably big hits. The film is really that good.
But ;et’s look at that cast again. Throw in Joe Pantoliano, and Julianne Moore, and this thing fills out way beyond its perfectly cast two leads. Never mind that I just happened to watch The Living Daylights (1987) early today, so I’ve accidentally done a “surprise, Jeroen Krabbé ism’t your friend, he’s the bad guy” double-feature.
But let’s look at the two leads. Jones brings his magnetic minimalism to full bore here, and the film would suffer greatly if there was any point in time when Gerard would be an antagonist and not an adversary for Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble. Ford himself is at the height of his movie star powers, equal parts charming and disarming, and never not inspiring every inch of sympathy he can from the audience, and all by fully using the occasionally smirking, occasionally frowning countenance that made him a household name. But more importantly than that, this is a visceral performance from Ford. Forgoing just the chase amidst Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade (which makes the parade sequence in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) look all the more like a typical latter-day Lucasfilm CGI-fest) but As Ford is tossed around, and forced through raging waters in his escape attempts, it’s hard to think that this will be the guy who will quickly spend about twenty years sleep-walking through every film to which he forgot to say no.