The Fugitive (1993) – Review

For quite a while there, Harrison Ford was regarded as the everyman hero in American cinema for round about twenty years or so which, when you think about it must seem strange when you weigh up some of his most famous roles. I mean I dont know about your definition the term, but I’ve never been entirely convinced that “everyman” is the correct label to slap on a space smuggler, a Nazi punching archaeologist or the President Of The United States.
However, that all changes when you settle down and watch the full force of the Ford focus unleashed in Andrew Davis’ masterful pursuit thriller, The Fugitive, thst finally makes you realise what all that everyman talk is about – even though in the 90s, an everyman apparently was a white, cardio vascular surgeon who had a rich wife and could brawl like a wrestler and outwit the U.S. Marshal service on the regular. Arguably one of the greatest movie adaptions from a TV ever seen, it’s time to put out an all points bulletin for a memorably haggard Ford and the sight of Tommy Lee Jones obnoxioisly barking and hollering his way to an Oscar.

Dr. Richard Kimble has had better days. After all, after his idyllic life with his wife was horribly cut short after she was bludgeoned to death by a mystery assailant with a prosthetic arm and he’s now looking at a date with a lethal injection after getting framed for the crime. However, while being transported to his final destination via prison bus, he finds himself in the middle of a half-assed jail break that sends the bus tumbling onto a train track. Leaping from the wreckage just as a train hits, the doctor now finds himself in a whole new predicament as he now has to go on the run while simultaneously proving his innocence.
Of course, that going to be hard for a multitude of reasons, but the main one will prove to be the craggy, stern presence of Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard, a no-nonsense son of a bitch who delights at putting noses out of joint and will stop at nothing to see his quarry brought down. And so a battle of wits ensues that contains very simple rules; Kimble will return to Chicago and try to clear his name while trying to dodge the law while Gerard will do everything in his power to being him in or bring him down while bellowing at everyone around him. However, while Richard manages to narrowly avoid train crashes, leaps from storm drains and numerous run-ins with Gerard’s badge waving force of nature, he gets ever closer to discovering the truth about the conspiracy that has ruined his life.
But even if he hides out in every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area, can a surgeon really manage to stay one step ahead of the best attack dog the Marshal service has?

I actually wasn’t prepared to find out exactly how well The Fugitive has aged after a long overdue rewatch of arguably the 90s greatest action/thriller. For a start, the very nature of the film’s casting should actually work against it when you think about it; I mean with hindsight, casting Harrison Ford as a man on the run in 1993 pretty much guarantees that you’re going to leave the cinema with a sense of justice fulfilled – in fact on his review show, the late great Barry Norman even stated that maybe the roles should have been reversed and Jones should have played Kimble to fuck with the audience a bit (he descibed Jones as looking like someone who could kill his own mother – which was actually pretty fair). However, many years down the line and we find that the casting was actually bang on the money.
While Ford will always be rightly beloved for playing Han Solo and Indiana Jones (no matter much he pretends to complain about it), there’s a massive case for Richard Kimble  being possibly the perfect role for the man. He gets to be physical, he gets to be human and he certainly gets to point at people a lot when he gets all fired up, but most of all, he gets to be vulnerable throughout the entirety of the film. Yes, the thrilling stuff is incredibly thrilling with the fabled train leap and dam jump still being near perfect 90s set pieces despite the odd dated greenscreen work or an obvious dummy being utilised, but it all immediately clicks into place to almost instinctively. The result is you are utterly invested in the film the second it starts and matters get even more perfect the moment Tommy Lee Jones brings his ridiculously sour looking face on screen.

If Ford his the dependable compass of righteousness, then Jones is organised chaos personified as he storms into frame and essentially takes over the film much like the way his character shoves all the other forms of law enforcement aside in order to get his way. Rude, abrupt and an utter control freak, he’s utterly fucking magnificent as he alternates between a potential H.R. nightmare as he sardonically snaps at his own underlings or gets in the face of virtually everyone who even looks at him funny. In fact, it’s a very close call between which drives the movie more, Ford’s torturous quest for freedom, or Jones being an utter prick to everyone he shares the screen with. To this day, I’m still genuinely unsure who ultimately won.
In fact, even the supporting characters are taken care of. Not only do we get early roles for Jane Lynch and Julianne Moore, but the members of Gerard’s team (that includes Joe Pantoliano in a very 90s hairpiece) are so well sketched out, they all feel like they’ve been in a film before and The Fugitive is somehow a sequel.
The reason for this is the no-bullshit direction of Andrew Davis that manages to make the smaller moments matter even when it’s caught in the irresistible pincer movement of Ford vs Jones, and he keeps the thing moving like an utter beast. We shouldn’t be surprised seeing as Davis has had to wrangle Steven Segal a couple of times before taking on helming duties here, but while some of the late-in-the-film detective work slows the pace down in its final third after such an insanely strong opening – again, the sheer, irisistable strength of the leads pushes us through.

“I didn’t kill my wife!” is the impassioned plea delivered in possibly The Fugitive’s most iconic moment. “I don’t care!” is the callous response. Well we sure as hell do, Tommy and that’s what will make the movie always run and run.
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