Classic Movie Review The Fugitive

The Fugitive (1993) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Jeb Stuart, David Twohy 

Starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Julianne Moore, Selma Blair, Joe Pantoliano

Release Date August 6th, 2023

Published August 7th, 2023 

The story behind the movie The Fugitive is much crazier than I would have ever expected. The movie is so tight and so uniquely performed, I assumed that it must have been a terrifically assembled piece of work behind the scenes. Then, I read an incredible thread on Twitter from a user named @ATRightMovies. This person lays out a behind the scenes story that, on the surface, you would assume led to the creation of a complete disaster of a movie. Script problems, a star who was halfheartedly interested in making the movie, and assumptions on the set that everyone was making a bad movie, somehow led to the creation of a film that was nominated for 7 Oscars, with one Oscar win. 

The Fugitive is based on a popular 1960s television series starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man wrongly accused of murdering his wife. Harrison Ford takes on the role of Dr. Kimble in the movie which finds him returning to his well appointed home to find a one armed man had assaulted and murdered his wife (Sela Ward). Kimble fought the one armed man but he managed to mistake. When Police arrived, they found Dr. Kimble covered in his wife's blood, he'd tried to perform CPR and ended up clutching her dead body in his anguish over her death. 

The blood and Kimble's story about a one armed man are too much for the Chicago Police Investigators to buy. They arrest Kimble and charge him with murder. Found guilty, Richard is facing life in prison when fate intervenes. While being transported to a Federal Prison, other inmates on the transport initiate a plan for escape. They attack and stab a guard, the driver of the bus is shot and killed, and the bus crashes on train tracks. In a spectacular sequence, a train is headed toward the bus on the tracks. Kimble picks up the injured officer and saves his life. Then, in a moment that has been shared among the best action sequences of the past 30 years, Kimble leaps from the broken bus seconds before the train strikes it, leading to a train derailment. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The Guardian

The Guardian (2006) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Ron L. Brinkerhoff

Starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Sela Ward, Melissa Sagemiller, Clancy Brown, Omari Hardwick

Release Date September 29th, 2006 

Published September 29th, 2006 

Kevin Costner is maturing quite well into his elder statesman role. He has turned in a series of strong older leading man performances in Open Range, The Upside of Anger and he was the only appealing element of the abysmal romantic comedy Rumor has It. Costner's latest picture may be his most obvious transitional work. As a coast guard trainer to upstart Ashton Kutcher's rescue swimmer trainee, Costner is seen in The Guardian as passing the torch to a new generation.

If that last line isn't indication enough of the cheeseball nature of The Guardian wait till you hear the Bryan Adams tune that closes this eye rolling action adventure.

Kevin Costner stars in The Guardian as Senior Chief Ben Randall, a coast guard rescue swimmer. It is Ben's job to jump from helicopters into the roiling waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska and save lives. As a near 20 year veteran, no one has saved nearly as many lives. Sadly for Ben his latest mission led to a tragic accident that killed his entire crew, including his closest friend.

Washed out to the Coast Guard's elite training facility called A School, Ben is forced to give up rescue swimming in favor of training the next generation of swimmers. Amongst the new recruits is a brash former high school swimming champion named Jake Fischer. A hot head who lacks leadership and teamwork skills, Fischer clashes immediately with his new mentor.

No points for guessing that the adversarial relationship between Ben and Jake eventually comes to grudging respect to fatherly protectiveness before they are finally ready to save lives together. Yes, The Guardian as directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive); is as predictable as a road map. That said, the action on the high seas, the dangerous windswept life saving moments are more often than not very exciting.

Andrew Davis knows his way around great action from the train escape sequence in The Fugitive to the explosions of the otherwise awful Arnold Schwarzenneger flick Collateral Damage to the high seas action of The Guardian. It's the other aspects of direction, character, plot, tone, where Davis struggles as a director.

Working from a script by Ron Brinkerhoff, whose only other credit is the straight to video Sly Stallone pic D-Tox, Davis crafts a film that is part big action and part cheeseball kitsch. Every critic in the country has mentioned the obvious parallels between The Guardian and other military male bonding flicks like Top Gun, An Officer and A Gentleman and the oft forgotten De Niro flick Men Of Honor. The Guardian does nothing to separate itself from these films, heavily lifting from each with no regard for originality.

The Guardian had me rolling my eyes early on as we met Ben Randell's wife played by Sela Ward. If you guessed that Randall is one of those married to his job types and because of that his wife is leaving him; well, of course, you're right. This is such an obvious and obligatory scene, Ward's character moving her things out of their shared home, that it almost seems intentionally humorous. Almost.

Despite the predictability, despite the cheeseball way that director Andrew Davis rips off other similar films, I still found myself wrapped up in The Guardian. The action on the high seas is edge of your seat stuff with some terrifically well integrated CGI effects and a pair of game if waterlogged stars. Costner and Kutcher play well off of each other in the action scenes, really playing up the father-son dynamic of their relationship.

The film also has a credible, if not exactly smoking hot, romance for Kutcher's Jake Fischer. Melissa Sagemiller plays Emily; a school teacher who falls for Jake despite knowing that he will be shipped far away from where they meet, at the training school. The scenes between Kutcher and Sagemiller  begin with yet another of those predictable, been there done that moments, one where the cocky cadet bets his pals he can pick up the hottest girl in the bar in under a minute. It's a cheesy, eye rolling start, but these likable actors manage to make the romance work because they have pretty good chemistry.

Movie Review Holes

Holes (2003) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Louis Sachar 

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson 

Release Date April 18th, 2003 

Published April 17th, 2003 

Posters and wall hangings for the movie Holes began popping up in my local theater over 3 months ago. Because they touted the Disney connection of the film, I took little notice of them writing the film off as yet another formula Disney family movie. It wasn't until recently that I found out Holes is based on a book that had been a phenomenal hit with grade schoolers. This piqued my interest so I checked in with my grade school pop culture consultants, my nieces Megan, 11, and Alexa, 9. They told me that indeed Holes was a big hit in their school though Alexa was more interested than Megan was. Alexa was a little annoyed about my questions because she claims she told me about Holes a long time ago. So armed with this new knowledge, and never one to be left out of the pop culture loop, I went and checked out the movie.

Holes tells a couple of parallel stories that all play into one central story. The center of the story is Stanley Yelnats (Shia Lebeouf) who while walking home is hit in the head by a pair of baseball cleats. What Stanley doesn't know right away is that shoes were stolen from a charity auction for the homeless and were the property of a famous ballplayer. The film doesn't tip off the audience to exactly what is happening, all we know is that Stanley didn't steal the shoes but is nevertheless railroaded in court and sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile camp called Camp Greenlake.

The name Camp Greenlake is ironic because it’s far from green and there is no lake anywhere. The camp is in the middle of the desert and is run by three numbskull bad guys, Mr. Sir (Jon Voight), Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson) and Warden Walker (Sigourney Weaver). According to the slimy Mr. Sir, Stanley's punishment at Camp Greenlake for his 18-month stay is to dig holes. Everyday for endless hours, nothing but digging. The counselors say digging builds character but it’s obvious to even the camp's most dunderheaded inhabitant that they are digging for something.

That something may be the treasure of a legendary bank robber known as Kissin Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette). Kate Barlow was once a loving, docile school teacher who taught both the children and adults of Greenlake how to read and write. Her life was changed forever by a short sweet romance with Sam the onion man (West Wing’s Dule Hill). It began simply enough with Sam trading Kate his delicious onions in exchange for her delicious peaches. Then Sam offered to fix holes in the schoolhouse roof and from there, a tentative romance that is sweet and tender and yet barely takes up 10 to 15 minutes of screentime. The Sam and Kate subplot is the best thing about the film. Director Andrew Davis paints the romance quickly but without sacrificing the tenderness and Arquette and Hill have terrific chemistry. As the subplot develops in flashback, the fact that Sam is black tips the audience to the likely tragic ending of the romance to come.

There is yet another flashback story that plays into the main story, which is the story of the Yelnats family curse that Stanley believes has landed him in trouble. It seems years ago before coming to America Stanley's great grandfather made a deal with a sorceress Madam Zeroni, but before completing the deal he ran off to America and Madame Zeroni curse the family forever.

I won't reveal how the subplots play into the film’s main story, but I will say that it all makes sense in the end and the multiple flashbacks never become overbearing or distracting. They each reveal little clues that play in the ending of the film. Again I cannot praise enough the romance between Arquette and Hill which is of course meant to teach a lesson of history and tolerance. Because of Davis' skillful direction and writer Louis Sachar's smart script (Sachar also wrote the book), the subplot never seems preachy or heavy-handed.

The surprising thing about Holes is the amount of negativity sprinkled throughout that the film’s cute kids movie trailer doesn't prepare you for. The trailer is quite a swerve, leading those who didn't read the book to think you were seeing a Goonies-like gang of friends who stand up to the bad guys and work together as friends to find treasure. In reality, the supporting characters played up as Stanley's friends are for most of the film rather mean and unlikable. That is destined to change by the end of the film but it's certainly surprising at the beginning. Credit Sachar for such a risky choice to allow the kids of Camp Greenlake to actually be the obnoxious troublemakers that would end up being sent to a camp like the one in the film.

The problem areas of the film come from its one-note villains, Weaver, Nelson and especially Jon Voight. Playing a verified version of his amazon guide from Anaconda, Voight gets on your nerves with his many character quirks and quick tempered over acting. As for Weaver and Nelson, they don't rely on quirks and over acting likely because their character development was left on the cutting room floor, leaving them to simply be jerks. The film’s pacing is also at times a little slow and will leave many checking their watch and feeling they have been in the theater far longer than it seems

Nevertheless, there is more good than bad in Holes which is a parable about race, love, family and friendship masked in a mystery about buried treasure and western legend. With such unwieldy elements to tie into one story, credit Louis Sachar and Andrew Davis for making the film coherent. That it's also mildly entertaining is a nice bonus.

Movie Review: Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage (2002) 

Directed by Andrew Davis

Written by David Griffiths, Ronald Roose 

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Cliff Curtis, John Leguizamo, John Turturro, Tyler Posey 

Release Date February 8th, 2002 

Published February 8th, 2002 

Is America ready? I'm not talking about is America ready for a violent action film so close to anniversary of 9/11. I mean is America ready for an Arnold Schwarzenegger that doesn't entirely suck. In Collateral Damage, Schwarzenegger is Gordy Breuer a Los Angeles firefighter who witnesses an explosion that kills his wife and child. Not only did he see what happened but also he saw the man responsible, a terrorist called the Wolf (Cliff Curtis).

Schwarzenegger characters are anything but passive, and Gordy is quick to dismiss warnings from government officials including Elias Koteas, the CIA Agent who was the target of the bomb that killed Gordy's wife and child. It doesn't take a genius to know Gordy is going to Columbia to find the Wolf and avenge the death of his family.

If it were that simple there wouldn't be much of a film. Director Andrew Davis (the lensman behind The Fugitive) expertly builds suspense by keeping the film’s pace clicking along quickly. It doesn’t hurt to use Schwarzenegger's previously established action persona to give the audience the feeling that anything could happen at any moment.

The film's special effects are surprisingly cheesy at times, especially the CGI sequences that look as fake as they are. And at 50+ years old, Schwartzenegger obviously can no longer do his own stunts, so it would help to find a stuntman that looks a little more like him.

Those problems aside Collateral Damage is exciting and suspenseful from beginning to end. The film has an especially good twist near the end that I honestly didn't see coming. Is America ready for Collateral Damage? Well they should be because on video and DVD and it's definitely a worthy rental.