The Fugitive

This was an excellent movie. It can be summarized as, "Tommy Lee Jones chases Harrison Ford for two hours." After watching it, I spent some time thinking about whether there is any way a movie that can be described like that could possibly go wrong. My conclusion is: No. No, there isn't. The setup could be anything from a zany, ridiculous, "Agent K chases Han Solo through a galaxy inside a subway station locker" to a dead serious, gritty action film. Anything on that spectrum would work. In fact, "Tommy Lee Jones chases Harrison Ford for two hours" could be an entire sub-genera unto itself, and every single entry would be awesome. Why don't I live in the alternate universe where this happened?

My only complaint is that the violence at the beginning and end was slightly more brutal than it really needed to be. Don't get me wrong--I like action movies, and I like fight scenes, but I like them for the stunts and for the thrill that comes with the fear of danger, not for the actual violence itself. (Okay, fine, sometimes it is pretty satisfying to see the villain take a couple punches to the face, but that's beside the point...I think...) Anyway, because of that, my philosophy is that the violence should be toned down as much as it can be without sacrificing either of those two things, and The Fugitive could have toned it down a little.

But honestly, only a little. It's a pretty minor complaint, and everything else about the movie is perfect. I considered starting this review with a line or two quoted from the movie that caught its essence, but there were too many good ones and I couldn't choose. Instead, I will let you go watch it for yourself and enjoy all of them.

This is a movie about what happens when an unstoppable force (Harrison Ford) meets an immovable object (Tommy Lee Jones). Their two characters are both remarkably stubborn, admirably resourceful, and absolutely convinced of the justice of their own cause. They are also both completely right.

And that is what makes this movie so insanely good. Of course the good guy is is going to win. I tend to avoid movies where that is not a foregone conclusion because I have the taste of a ten year old boy. But with The Fugitive, the actual villain is the direct cause of very little of the film's suspense or conflict, which is provided almost entirely through chase of the escaped convict by the lawman. (There's a reason it's called The Fugitive, after all.)

So who's the good guy? Is it the escaped convict--the man who was wrongly put on death row because he was framed for the murder of his wife but then escaped and is now trying to avoid recapture and find the real killer? Or is it the lawman--the U.S. marshal whose job it is to protect people from convicted murderers?

The answer, of course, is that it's both of them, and when you have two good guys in conflict, anything could happen. The real villain is there, of course, lurking in the background and leading to the inevitable black and white climax, but throughout the movie, it is by no means clear where any particular step is going to lead. Even better, you the viewer don't always know where you want it to lead, so you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy this immensely fun ride.