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The Fugitive

The Fugitive

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thrilling and edge-of-your-seat excitement! Awesome!
Review: This movie is face-paced and never lacking adventure. A great movie to watch over and over again! It is well written and directed with a lot of action-packed stunts. One of my favorite action/dramas!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exciting and intense!
Review: Harrison Ford plays this role well, as he does in all of his other movies. The whole movie is action packed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie!!!
Review: This movie rocks. It is the few movies out there that you can watch over and over and never get sick ot it. END

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fugitive is Dr. Richard Kimball: Go get this movie.
Review: If I were stranded on a desert island and all I could have was my abysmally sparse movie collection, I would make sure "The Fugitive" was in it. Thankfully, it is. This is one of the most entertaining and engaging movies ever, far superior to a lot of movies playing these days. For the few of you who don't know the plot, I'll run it past you without spoiling much...

The story revolves around a Chicago surgeon named Dr. Richard Kimball (Harrison Ford) who is convicted of murdering his wife (Sela Ward). He pleads innocent, claiming that a one-armed man committed the heinous crime (the opening sequence, showing the murder in flashback style, is chillingly realistic). Well, no one believes the good doctor's alibi, and he is sentenced to death. However, after his prison bus crashes into a train, he escapes back to Chicago to find the murderer, while keeping away from US Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) and his team of deputies.

Having never seen the old TV series, this movie was nevertheless fantastic. The thrills just keep coming, as well as the tongue-in-cheek humor, courtesy of Tommy Lee Jones and Joe Pantoliano (as Cosmo, Sam's deputy), who really steal the show in a lot of scenes. The screenplay is obviously very sharp. The train-and-bus wreck will take your breath away, as will the waterfall sequence. Aside from these action scenes, it's great that this movie is shot in Chicago, one of the greatest cities in North America. Sorry, personal bias, I loved Chicago when I visited a couple years back. The acting is very well done, and the characters are very three-dimensional. Sometimes it feels like you're watching a modern "Les Miserables". Nice transition from action thriller to action-mystery as the film enters its second half. If you follow the plot, which is fairly easy to keep up with, the ending will shock you. All in all, "The Fugitive" is definitely worth the bang for your hard-earned buck. If you haven't seen this wonderful piece of movie-making, do so ASAP.

Quality-wise, the DVD is pretty good. Director Andrew Davis does a cool little documentary on how the train wreck was filmed.

MOVIE-10/10
DVD EXTRAS-8/10

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thrilling and Very Tense
Review: One of the biggest box office smashes of the '90s, "The Fugitive" still firmly holds its ground as a thinking persons' action film, full of exciting story (based on the television show and the Alan Shepard murder case) and fine kinetic filmaking. And who doesn't love Tommy Lee Jones (The Client, Men In Black) Harrison Ford (If you don't know one other movie he's in stop reading this review) as adversaries and seeming equals. Plus the film boasts an up-and-coming Joe Pantoliano (of t.v.'s "The Sopranos" the new CBS drama "The Handler") as a member of Jones' crack U.S. Marshall unit.

The film kicks off as Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford) is wrongly convicted of his wifes' murder, and escapes when his prison bus crashes and is destroyed by an oncoming train. Soon on the scene is veteran U.S. Marshall Samuel Gerrard (Jones) to start his relentless hunt for Kimble.

What follows is an intense cat and mouse game, with Jones dogging Fords' every step and Ford risking almost certain recapture trying to clear his name. Gifted Director Andrew Davis and his gifted team of editors and cinematographers take this premise and turn "The Fugitive" into a virtuostic piece of kinetic filmaking. They stage one surprising and no holds barred chase after another, trying to top themselves at every turn and succeeding most of the time. A huge reason for this is Ford and Jones, the films' soul. Jones won a deserved Best Supporting Actor oscar for his work playing a terrific hard-ass, and no one is better at playing sympathetic heroes than Harrison Ford, and he pulls out one of his best performances.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A classic action thriller
Review: What makes "The Fugitive" such a successful and superior film is that it knows what it is: an action/mystery film. It makes no attempt to make itself bigger or more intellectual than it is (as did the American version of "The Vanishing"). Harrison Ford, surprisingly underplaying the role of Dr. Kimball--others might have overworked his grief and angst--turns in a brilliant performance. And the always reliable Tommy Lee Jones does an icy, sparkling job as Kimball's persuer, US Marshal Sam Gerard. So good a performance that he earned a well-deserved Oscar for it.

The other key to the movie's success is Andrew Davis' dazzling direction. He keeps the pace frenetic for a good deal of the film, and the pot is always kept boiling. Close calls and intense chases keep the tension and suspense at fever pitch. "The Fugitive" will endure for a long time as a classic action thriller.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Legend of a Wrongful Conviction
Review: The film opens with a woman being attacked; we learn it is the wife of Dr. Richard Kimble. The police take the husband in for questioning. They had been at an event, and Dr. Kimble was called to the hospital, leaving his wife alone. There was an attack by a one-armed man; his wife's death leaves him rich. Dr. Kimble is convicted for her murder and sentenced to death. (This is based on the 1960s TV series.) The surprise in this movie is not in the ending, but the events that lead to the ending. The legend of a Doctor wrongly convicted is based on the real case of Dr. Sam Sheppard.

As an action suspense story, this is excellent! It is set in the Chicago area, probably because Cleveland would have no part of this story. Marshall Gerard shows up to personally take over the investigation, and search for the fugitive. Dr. Kimble's escape in cold weather reminds me of the similar escape of Rambo. Dr. Kimble hides in the urban jungle. The pacing keeps the fugitive one jump ahead of his pursuers. When he is trapped in the tunnel, Dr. Kimble goes underground (literally). Gerard is relentless for a man who "doesn't care". Dr. Kimble escapes with a desperate leap into the air. We then follow Dr. Kimble as he attempts to search for the real killer, like in a detective story.

This story was updated to reflect the business world of the 1990s, and its many scandals. Professional rivalry could not be mentioned in the 1960s. This is a film that can be watched and enjoyed every year. I wonder if that ethnic neighborhood was chosen for some significance? The parade in the street reminded me of the scene in "Blow Out" or "The Net". The film does not tell of Dr. Kimble's future. Will Dr. Kimble face the same problems that Dr. Sheppard faced after his acquittal? We hope not.



Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than the TV Series
Review: When I was a kid I liked to watch "The Fugitive" episodes on TV. It offered a unique scenario; an (innocent) escaped convict running from a persistent lawman goes from town to town meeting different people with different problems, challenges, asperations, etc. By the time things are resolved in each episode, Inspector Girard is just close enough for Richard Kimble to flee to a new locale for a new episode. The possibilities were endless because there were only two characters that were repeaters from one episode to the next.

In the movie, this aspect was lost but, in its' place, a more exciting set of circumstances were explored. The TV version of Richard Kimble was always looking for "the one-armed man" (OK, I guess there were THREE characters that appeared in some or all of the episodes). However, he never got close enough until the end. In the movie version, Dr. Richard Kimble is a man possessed and the innocent bystanders were incidental to the pursuit of finding the real killer. Jettison the human interest stories and focus on the chasee being the chaser and we've got a real action movie.

There is nary a dull moment throughout "The Fugitive" all of which is aided by a superb cast. Tommy Lee Jones deservingly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in his role as the Marshall in pursuit. Harrison Ford produces his customary above average performance and a number of other characters add a lot as well. The aura of suspense coupled with the search to solve a mystery leads to a great climax.

This is one of those movies you stick with when channel surfing. As good as the TV version was, I recall that I listened to a Twins game the night of the final episode. Fortunately the scoreboard announced the outcome of the final episode (as well as the game) and the sportcasters relayed it to us listeners. I think I would opt for the movie over the baseball game if the choice ever comes up.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not a fugitive from logic
Review: The reviewer two reviews down who thinks a U.S. Marshal wouldn't have had 'jurisdiction' apparently doesn't know that the United States Marshal Service maintains many regional Fugitive Task Forces that do what Tommy Lee Jones does in this film.

There are three such offices in Illinois.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Fugitive (1993)
Review: Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford), convicted of killing his wife Helen, on his way to be executed in Southern Illinois, has a lucky bus accident and escapes to a hospital. Enter Sam Gerard (Jones), who literally steals the show with his flip one-liners throughout the film: My my my...what a mess; We got a gopher; Richard, do you wanna get shot?!; S.o.b. our boy came home, etc. Gerard hounds Kimble ruthlessly all the way back home to Chicago. The scenes that stand out are the start of the chase, the tunnel standoff, the encounter at the hotel. Richard finds a one-armed man killed Helen and breaks into his apartment to find more dirt and encounters him on the el-train en route to confront the mastermind of the murder, his best friend Dr. Charles Nichols. A clever man, Richard eludes Sam and his lawmen by hiding out in child molester apt. and posing as an Hispanic janitor doing medical work. Clearly the best action movie of the 1990s, as excellent acting portrayals by Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.


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