The Fugitive (1993 film)
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| The Fugitive | |
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 Movie poster for The Fugitive |
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| Directed by | Andrew Davis |
| Produced by | Arnold Kopelson |
| Written by | Roy Huggins (Characters), David Twohy (Story and screenplay), Jeb Stuart (Screenplay) |
| Starring | Harrison Ford Tommy Lee Jones Joe Pantoliano Sela Ward Julianne Moore L. Scott Caldwell Neil Flynn |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Michael Chapman |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 6, 1993 |
| Running time | 130 min. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Fugitive is a 1993 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning feature film, based on the television series of the same name. The film was directed by Andrew Davis and stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard. Jones won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The film also featured Andreas Katsulas as the one-armed man, Sela Ward as Kimble's wife, Jeroen Krabbé (who replaced Richard Jordan), Julianne Moore, and Joe Pantoliano. The film was one of the few movies associated with a television series to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
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[edit] Plot
Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is a successful Chicago based vascular surgeon who returns home from a doctor's conference to find his wife, Helen Kimble (Sela Ward), dying following a brutal attack. The attacker is a mysterious one-armed man, Frederick Sykes (Andreas Katsulas), with whom Kimble fights, but the man escapes (Kimble is unaware of Sykes's identity at that point). During his attempts to save his wife, she scratches him, and, not having any physical evidence to prove his testimony about Sykes, two police detectives make up their own version that makes Kimble look guilty. The real clincher comes when a tape of Helen Kimble's 911 call is played, which makes it seem as if she is naming her husband as the attacker when in reality she is trying to get the police to call Kimble. Kimble is consequently convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
While being transported to prison by bus, the other inmates attempt a breakout. After the driver is shot, the bus crashes through a guardrail, rolls down a hill, and lands on a set of train tracks. Kimble manages to pull himself and a wounded guard to safety before a train rams the bus. Another surviving inmate frees Kimble from his chains and they flee the scene, separately, on foot. As a fugitive from justice, he becomes the quarry of Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), who leads a team from the US Marshals Service. Fugitive Task Force.
Although wounded and on the run, Kimble is determined to prove his innocence. With the hunters never far behind, there are many close calls. Several times he is almost captured, mostly brought on by Kimble's instincts as a doctor. On one occasion, he escapes by leaping down the spillway of a dam into the river below. Said scene includes the now-famous moment in which Kimble, holding Gerard at gunpoint, tells him he didn't kill his wife, only for Gerard to retort with an "I don't care.". During a chase at Daley Plaza, Kimble manages to trick a group of security officers into holding Gerard back long enough for him to escape, having told them about a "man in a blue topcoat waving a gun and screaming at a woman". Kimble loses his pursuers by slipping into the St. Patrick's day parade.
Kimble returns to Chicago to search for Sykes. He also makes contact with many of his former friends and associates from the medical community, virtually all of whom have never believed him to be guilty and are more than willing to help him. He also meets his old friend and colleague Dr. Charles Nichols (Jeroen Krabbé), who gives Kimble money, becomes a contact for him, and offers to help in any way.
Kimble is able to call Nichols again and tell him an Alec Lentz killed his wife. Lentz was a colleague of theirs in charge of tests of a new drug, RDU-90 (known colloquially as "Provasic"), since Kimble had discovered the liver damage it was causing: Nichols, however, contradicts Kimble, telling him Lentz died in a car accident a short time after the murder. Kimble pays a visit to another colleague's office to view the pathologist's reports and take a look at some tissue samples from Provasic, where his colleague shows him a pile of reports approved by Lentz on the day he died, meaning someone else with access to the reports is the real culprit: Charles Nichols himself, who stood to benefit from Provasic sales and needed Kimble out of the way.
Kimble's innate intelligence keeps him one step ahead of Gerard, who begins to have doubts as to Kimble's guilt, especially after Kimble makes a phone call to Gerard from Sykes' house, knowing that they will trace the call and be led to Sykes. Sykes, however, receives Gerard coldly and convinces him he's never met Kimble in his life before. Later on, however, Sykes receives a call from someone ordering him to carry out some kind of mission, leading to a confrontation between him and Kimble on a train, in which a police officer (Neil Flynn) is killed and Kimble defeats Sykes in combat, handcuffing him to a post and knocking him out.
The showdown occurs at a medical conference, where Kimble publicly confronts Nichols during a speech and reveals the harmful side effects of Provasic. As the two doctors fight their own battle in another room, the Chicago police are on their trail, suspecting Kimble of killing the train officer. Gerard now knows that Kimble in fact did not murder his wife; Nichols had borrowed Kimble's car, from where he had telephoned Sykes to kill Kimble at his home, giving him Kimble's house keys and thereby explaining the break-in with no forced entry. Gerard is now determined to get to Kimble first to prevent the police from shooting him on sight.
Gerard calls off the police and follows Kimble to the laundry room. While searching for him, he explains the reasons why he knows Kimble is innocent. Nichols reveals himself and attempts to shoot Gerard, but Kimble hits Nichols in the back of the knee with a lead pipe, then knocks him with unconscious via a blow to the head, saving Gerard's life.
Kimble is escorted out of the building by Gerard as Sykes is arrested, passing the same two police detectives who fooled the court being berated for their "mistake" by the press, while continuing to assert their position as correct. Kimble is then finally freed by Gerard, who hands him an ice bag as they drive off in a limousine. The film ends with Kimble telling Gerard "I thought you didn't care." to which Gerard says he doesn't, laughs, and smiling says "Don't tell anybody, okay?"
[edit] Reception
The Fugitive opened strongly in the United States box office, grossing $23,758,855 in its first weekend and holding the top spot for six weeks. It eventually went on to gross an estimated $183,875,760 in the US, and $353,900,000 worldwide.[1]
It was nominated for seven Academy Awards; Jones took the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The other Oscars it was nominated for were Best Picture; Best Cinematography; Sound Effects Editing; Film Editing; Original Music Score; and Sound. Jones also received numerous other awards for his role, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture.
It also received largely enthusiastic reviews from film critics. It is widely considered to be one of the best films adapted from a television series. As of January 2008, it received a 93% score and has been certified "Fresh" on RottenTomatoes.com. Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, calling it "one of the year's best films".[2]
This film was so popular worldwide that, South Indian film director Sangeeth Sivan remade this film in the regional language Malayalam in the name Nirnayam, starring the popular malayalam actor Mohanlal. It was received very well there and is considered one of the best Malayalam films ever produced
[edit] Filming
Although almost half of the movie is set in rural Illinois, a large portion of the principal filming was actually shot in Jackson County, North Carolina in the Great Smoky Mountains. The famous scene involving Kimble's prison transport bus and a freight train wreck was filmed along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad just outside of Dillsboro, North Carolina. Riders on the excursion railroad can still see the wreckage on the way out of the Dillsboro depot.[citation needed] Scenes in a hospital after Kimble's escape were filmed at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, North Carolina.
The rest of the movie was filmed in Chicago, Illinois, including some of the dam scene, which were filmed in the remains of the Chicago Freight Tunnels (and also at Deals Gap, North Carolina).[3] The "one-armed man" lived in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago (see Pullman, Chicago). Harrison Ford used the pay phone in the local bar (the Pullman Pub), at which point he climbs a ladder and runs down the roofline of the historic rowhomes towards the one armed man's house. There are several other scenes that show the rowhouses of the historic neighborhood George Pullman built in the 1870s for his factory workers. During the St Patrick's Day Parade chase scene, Mayor Richard M. Daley and then Illinois Attorney General, Roland W. Burris, are briefly, but prominently, shown as participants in the parade. One night scene under the "L" tracks, showed Kimble exiting an alley by 130 N. Wells St., with "Chicago Memorial" covering the then Illinois Bell Building sign.
[edit] Novelization
J.M. Dillard wrote a mass market paperback novelization of the movie. She worked from the original screenplay, which eschews most of the humorous wisecracks spoken on film. Her novel looks more closely at some of the movie's leading characters, especially Gerard and his newest subordinate.
[edit] Spin-off film
Jones returned as Gerard in a spin-off released in 1998, U.S. Marshals, which also featured Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr. and Joe Pantoliano. While the second movie also features Gerard's team of marshals hunting down an escaped fugitive accused of murder, it does not involve Kimble or the events of the first movie. However, the fictional hospital at which Kimble works, Chicago Memorial, is featured.
[edit] In popular culture
- The movie Wrongfully Accused spoofs this movie.
- In an episode of Crossing Jordan, Jordan stumbles across the "one armed man"'s body in her Boston morgue who a California Death Row inmate has claimed was responsible for a murder she was convicted of. The film The Fugitive was mentioned once by name and later referenced once.
- In an episode of the American sitcom Scrubs, the Janitor is pointed out to be a policeman that was shot near the end of The Fugitive. Neil Flynn, the actor who plays the Janitor, actually did play that part.
- In The Simpsons episode Lisa's Rival, the dam scene is spoofed with Milhouse (whom Bart had previously got on America's Most Wanted) stands at the edge of the dam explaining that '(he) didn't do anything!' with an FBI agent (closely resembling Gerard) replying "I don't care!". He then proceeds to jump off the dam, just like Kimble, only he yells, "Ow! My glasses!". In another episode, Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two), Homer manages to escape custody when his paddywagon is overturned by Chief Wiggum's attempt to get his drive-thru order, shortly before the wagon is hit by Jasper's car, in much the same way as the train crashes into Kimble's prisoner transport bus (Homer similarly has both his hands and feet shackled). Also in the episode "Bart Gets Famous"", Bart writes on the chalkboard at the start "My homework was not stolen by a one-armed man"
- In the movie The Mask, when Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) is being arrested in the park by Lt. Kellaway (Peter Riegert), he sarcastically tells the lieutenant "It wasn't me! It was the one-armed man!"
- In one episode of Johnny Bravo, Johnny is accused of stealing the cookies of a policewoman, but he claims it was a "two-armed man".
- In the Drawn Together episode "The Lemon-AIDS Walk," Wooldoor Sockbat attempts to flee after stealing from a candy store, winding up at the top of a decorative waterfall in the mall. After Wooldoor protests that he didn't do anything, a disinterested security guard responds, "I don't care."
- Devlin-Macgregor, the fictitious pharmaceutical company that Kimble was going to blow the whistle on, has also been featured on trial in the television series Boston Legal.
- In the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back there is an animal research facility named Provasic and a parody of the dam scene, involving Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly.
- In the Psych episode Game Set...Muuurder? Shawn imitates a bit in the movie before saying "Hey, I can project Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive if you'd like?"
- In an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Will brings out a one armed ginger bread man and asks Carlton, "Is the one armed man you've been looking for?
- In the Drew Carey Show episode "Drew and Mr. Bell's Nephew", after dealing with a job applicant asking about a recent theft in the department store, Drew remarks "Our only clue is that it was a one-armed man".
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Fugitive at the Internet Movie Database
- The Fugitive at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Fugitive at Box Office Mojo
- U.S. Marshals at the Internet Movie Database
