The Fugitive (1993)

***Top-of-the-line crime thriller with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones***

Released in 1993 and based on the TV show from 30 years earlier, “The Fugitive” stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, an innocent fugitive framed for murder. As he pursues the one-armed killer & those who pulled his strings, a determined U.S. Marshal (Tommy Lee Jones) hunts Kimble down from wilderness regions to the streets of Chicago.

The first 40 minutes contain the most action, hooking the viewer with an exhilarating bus wreck/train wreck followed by a phenomenal dam sequence. The rest of the movie is an intelligent and suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase with Kimble zeroing-in on those who framed him and why.

“The Fugitive” was a deserved box office hit, costing $40 million and raking in $369 million with $184 of that domestically. To realize just how well-done it is, check out the sequel, “U.S. Marshals” (1998), which features the same basic plot, but without most of the magic.

The film runs 2 hours, 10 minutes and was shot in Illinois and North Carolina; the dam sequence, for instance, was filmed at Cheoah Dam, Tapoco, North Carolina.

GRADE: A-

Acclaimed surgeon “Kimble” (Harrison Ford) is used to the finer things in life, but not to the back of a prison van where he finds himself after being convicted of murdering his wealthy wife. Of course he protests his innocence, but it’s the chair for him - until, unexpectedly, his transportation makes an unscheduled stop and following the ensuing fracas he manages to escape. The local cops are content that all are accounted for, but Chicago Marshall “Gerard” (Tommy Lee Jones) spots an extra set of leg irons and quickly deduces that the good doctor has got away. Now he isn’t supposed to be a man with many survival skills, but it transpires that there is no-one scorned like a man falsely accused of killing his wife and so with the tenacious “Gerard” on his tail, nothing is going to get in his way as he sets about trying to find out who really did kill his beloved “Helen” (Sela Ward). As he investigates, we are introduced to his erstwhile colleagues like “Eastman” (Julianne Moore) and “Nichols” (Jeroen Krabbé) as well as the menacing “Sykes” (Andreas Katsulas) who looks like he’d wandered straight off the set of a “Munsters” movie, but with the scientific evidence looking fairly damning, what chance he can get to the truth? Fans of the television series from the 1960s are unlikely to see too many similarities as this takes advantage of far better production techniques to immerse us in both the escapee’s desperate flight but also in the comprehensive array of kit available to his pursuers as the pace of the film hits the ground (or the water) running and rarely lets up for a couple of hours that remind us more of why the charismatic Ford was a star in the first place. The ending isn’t the best, I felt. It’s all a bit rushed and just a little too predictable but discounting that last ten minutes, this is still a solidly entertaining chase thriller that does draw us in.