Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of murdering his wife, must find the real killer while being the target of a nationwide manhunt led by a seasoned U.S. Marshal.
Harrison Ford has always been and always will be, my favorite actor. After my father walked out on my mother, my sister, and me when I was just a kid, Ford became a surrogate father via Indiana Jones and did so for many years after. With “Raiders of the Lost Ark” being my all-time favorite movie, no other film has ever come close, but Ford has made a lot of other exciting movies outside of the Indiana Jones and Star Wars films that were outstanding. “The Fugitive,” a big-screen adaptation based on the 1960s television series of the same name, stars Ford as the titular character, Dr. Richard Kimble, a Chicago vascular surgeon who is accused and sentenced to death for the supposed murder of his wife Helen (Sela Ward).
Tommy Lee Jones plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, the man tasked with tracking down Kimble after the bus he is being transferred to prison on crashes, allowing him to escape and track down the one-armed man he said killed his wife. Kimble makes his way back to Chicago, the city he calls home, and sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence before he is apprehended by the authorities and sentenced to death.
“The Fugitive” was released in the summer of 1993, the same year Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” opened and while JP was the big winner that summer, indeed, that year, “The Fugitive” went on to gross over $370 million worldwide against a $44 million budget, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 1993 domestically, and was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, for which Jones won. Up to that point, the number of nominations was unheard of, as action films rarely received nominations outside of technical achievements. However, to be nominated for Best Picture and to win Best Supporting Actor were milestones no action movie had ever achieved.
While Ford and Jones only share two scenes in the film, the entire narrative rests squarely on both men’s shoulders. Kimble is innocent and must prove his innocence so that the bad guys pay for their sins, while Gerard is simply doing his job and is told that Kimble, a convicted criminal accused of killing his wife, must be captured, dead or alive. But as he continues to track down Kimble, he begins questioning the entire case, wondering why he would jeopardize himself and his freedom by coming back to the city where it all started. Director Andrew Davis never lets up on the tension, and just when you have time to catch a breath, something happens that keeps up the momentum until the very end.
The two most memorable scenes from “The Fugitive” are the train crash and the dam jump. As CGI was only in its infancy in 1993, the film uses mostly practical effects and stunts, and if you haven’t seen the movie yet, watch it on the biggest screen possible because when you see that train scene, know that it was real and that the filmmakers shot it in a single take using a real train with a locomotive whose engine had been removed. “The Fugitive” is that rare exception in Hollywood, an action thriller as smart as it is exciting, filled with exceptional performances, a compelling storyline, and thrilling, edge-of-your-seat action. There was a sequel, of sorts, called “U.S. Marshals,” bringing back Jones and his crew and starring Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey Jr., but it bombed at the box office and put an end to any further iterations. Sometimes, Hollywood needs to leave well enough alone.
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