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"THE FUGITIVE" (1993) (Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones) (PG-13) QUICK TAKE: Action/Adventure/Drama/Thriller: A Chicago surgeon wrongly accused, tried and convicted for his wife's murder, sets out to find the real killer, even as a Deputy U.S. Marshal doggedly tracks him down. PLOT: Dr. Richard Kimble (HARRISON FORD), a prominent and well-respected surgeon in Chicago, finds all of that gone after his wife Helen (SELA WARD) is brutally murdered and he's fingered as the only suspect, despite his assertions that a "one-armed man" murdered her. He's sentenced to death and while in transit to another prison, a harrowing train crash frees him, though not without being noticed. Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (TOMMY LEE JONES) is the one who notices and takes over the investigation of the missing Kimble, intending to send him right back to prison, no matter where he has to go, no matter what it takes. But it's not quite that easy as Kimble always keeps ahead of Gerard, by whatever means necessary, all while intent on finding that one-armed man. WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT? Fans of Harrison Ford and/or Tommy Lee Jones will not want to miss this, and there's genuinely suspenseful action throughout, so those drawn to that might be interested. WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG-13 For a murder and other action sequences in an adventure setting. CAST AS ROLE MODELS: HARRISON FORD plays Dr. Richard Kimble, a surgeon wrongly accused and convicted of murdering his wife. A train crash gives him the chance to disappear for a time, regroup, and eventually find the real murderer. TOMMY LEE JONES plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, hellbent on recapturing Kimble and sending him back to prison. Always flanked by a crack team equally as dedicated, Gerard is never far away from where Kimble is, sometimes where he was, and is never swayed from what he intends to do. And he's sometimes amused and impressed by Kimble's actions. He smokes a cigar in one scene. JOE PANTOLIANO plays Deputy Marshal Cosmo Renfro, who doesn't like certain aspects of his job, such as his new shoes getting soaked while walking in a tunnel, but has great respect for his boss. He curses a few times. DANIEL ROEBUCK plays Deputy Marshal Robert Biggs, another member of Gerard's team, who's on the level of his boss' desire to make sure that Kimble is caught. He heads up much of what Gerard asks for, or goes with other team members when the situation is too good to pass up. TOM WOOD plays Deputy Marshal Noah Newman, who differs with his boss when it comes to criminals holding people at gunpoint. Where he prefers that they be bargained with, Gerard tells him that he doesn't bargain. He's more the relatively new guy of the operation, judging by his efforts to gain more of Gerard's respect, not that it's not already there, but just to be noticed a bit more. SELA WARD plays Kimble's wife Helen in flashbacks, at a fundraiser for a pharmaceutical company and also the murder itself. She has a drink on hand at the fundraiser and has sex with Kimble later on. JEROEN KRABBÉ plays Dr. Charles Nichols, a friend of Kimble, who is very well respected in his field and helps Kimble out as much he can by giving him some cash, and denying to Gerard that he's seen him. But he becomes more intricately involved when Kimble comes back to Chicago and his search for the one-armed man becomes much more involved, making a lot more sense. ANDREAS KATSULAS plays Frederick Sykes, who explains to Gerard that he heads up security for a pharmaceutical company, but he becomes just as much involved in Kimble's search for different reasons. JULIANNE MOORE plays Dr. Anne Eastman who first enlists the help of Kimble---disguised as a janitor---in getting an injured boy to an observation room, but becomes suspicious of him when she finds out that the orders she gave regarding the boy were changed. CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO HOW OTHERS RATED THIS MOVIE Curious if this title is entertaining, any good, and/or has any artistic merit? Then read OUR TAKE of this film. (Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below). OUR WORD TO PARENTS: The following is a brief summary of the content found in this PG-13 rated action/adventure/drama/thriller. Profanity consists of at least 15 "s" words, while other expletives are uttered. A scene of Kimble's wife Helen having off-screen sex with him is shown, and some cleavage is present elsewhere. Violence consists of several people being shot dead and one person being brutally murdered, while fighting and other physical contact occurs. Some of the violence has bloody results, while some moments of peril might be unsettling or suspenseful for some viewers. Various characters have varying degrees of bad attitudes, while some potentially imitative behavior is present. A few characters hold drinks, while one does actually drink, one character smokes a cigar, and some drug related comments are made. For those concerned with flashing lights, blue strobe lights flash on top of a police car after the beginning of the film, for a few seconds, and in another scene, red and blue strobe lights flash, with cops and other personnel gathered by the side of the road. At the start of the end credits, there are flashing blue strobe lights from atop cop cars and at the tail end of those credits, fireworks pop for a bit. Should you still be concerned about the film's appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home, you may want to look more closely at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content. ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE Numerous guests at a fundraiser hold variously filled champagne glasses. The men standing next to Helen hold alcoholic drinks, one possibly drinking port, due to the size of the glass---though no liquid is seen---and another holds a whiskey glass. Helen holds a champagne glass. In a hospital examination room, Kimble injects himself with something, perhaps to lessen the pain. Gerard and Newman, a member of his team, stumble as they walk towards a house, acting drunk in order to blend into the area they're in and Gerard tells Newman to act drunk. The Chicago police chief tells his force that he is personally donating a 12-year-old bottle of scotch to whoever captures Kimble. Police arrest the Polish landlady's son, branding him a drug dealer and while arresting him, one of the cops asks him, "You like stringing out 12-year-old girls, huh?" Kimble drinks from a bottle of Budweiser while using a payphone. Much of the final act involves accusations and facts of wrongdoing by a drug company with a drug called Provasic, that presumably clears out arteries faster than surgery can. BLOOD/GROSS STUFF A patch of blood is seen on Helen's lower lip as she falls back. A later shot of Helen, when she is shot, shows the blood on her lower lip more prominently in color. In surgery, a bloody patch of something is next to one of the surgeons, and the camera pans down to an open part of a man's body, where much blood is present. As an incoherent Helen struggles after being shot, a latex-gloved hand picks up a ball-shaped marble paperweight, raises it, and the sickening sound is heard of a skull being crushed. Blood is seen around Helen's neck, as well as a trickle reaching down a sleeve of her robe. Partida, one of the prisoners on the bus, starts having a seizure, and foam comes out of his mouth. The bus stops rolling end over end, and the portly guard has a stream of blood on his face, while the other has a hand over his stab wound, and a dead prisoner has blood all over his face. Blood is seen on Kimble's forehead and near his mouth as he tries to get off the bus before the train comes. As Copeland unlocks him from his leg restraints, Kimble looks at his shirt and finds a sizable amount of blood that's seeped through. Copeland's camera-left eye has a ring of blood under it. The portly guard has streaks of blood on his forehead, post-train wreck. Blood stains are seen on the back of Kimble's yellow prison jumpsuit. Kimble pulls his white shirt back from his wound, it's very bloody, and some spots look dark. The portly guard looks up at the helicopter taking off, and three spots of blood are seen on his face and on his nose, and there are some faded streaks on his shirt. In a flashback, as Kimble tries to give Helen CPR, blood is seen on her gown, and in another shot, blood below her lips and all over her neck. A doctor escorts a woman on a stretcher into an emergency room, and traces of blood are seen. One of the kids in the hospital from a bus crash has a sizable bruise on his cheek and a small green tube sticking up from his chest. In another flashback, in an operating room, blood is on a surgeon's glove and elsewhere on the person being operated on. On an elevated train, Kimble goes over to a dead transit cop and blood is seen on the right and left sides of the man's shirt. Spots of blood are on Sykes' trench coat, on his chin, his lips, and under his nose. Blood is on the bridge of a man's nose. A man's face looks lacerated. Kimble's bloodied hand reaches out to stop an elevator door. As he goes through the laundry floor of a hotel, blood is seen on Kimble's lip and near his left eye, and also on his cheek. A cut is seen across Kimble's camera-left eyebrow, and there are spots of blood on his face. DISRESPECTFUL/BAD ATTITUDE An officer at the penitentiary, takes roll before the prisoners are transferred to a bus, and calls for Copeland who, in a nasty tone, says, "What?" Partida, one of the prisoners on a transport bus, starts having a seizure and when one of the guards unlocks the metal cage door and goes to look, Partida stabs him with a makeshift knife. Hearing the train's whistle, the portly guard refuses Kimble's plea for help with another guard, telling him, "The hell with you," and he runs. The portly guard takes credit for pushing his fellow guard out of the bus before the train hit, when we clearly saw that it was Kimble who did so, though Gerard soon deconstructs the guard's story into nothing. Despite Gerard being of higher rank as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, and telling the sheriff who he is, he is told to wait a minute. Later, the same sheriff refuses Gerard's request that checkpoints be placed on the roads, saying that it'll cause people to be frantic and flood his office with phone calls, and likely because he doesn't want to do any real work. After Gerard tells the sheriff that he'll take over the investigation, the sheriff tells his men to pack it up and says derisively that "Wyatt Earp is here to mop up…" Throughout the film, Kimble takes things that don't belong to him, such as a tow truck driver's jumpsuit and medical supplies in a hospital to clean and patch himself up, though in the context of what he's going through, it's necessary. Gerard barks orders at Cosmo and he fires back, questioning why Gerard always yells at him, pointing out Deputy Marshal Poole and asking Gerard, "Why don't you yell at her sometime?" It is revealed that a previously friendly character was involved in Helen's murder and caused all that has happened to Kimble. FRIGHTENING SCENES Scenes listed under "Violence," "Blood/Gross Stuff" and "Jump Scenes" may be unsettling, suspenseful or scary to younger viewers and/or those with low tolerance levels for such material. After the driver of a prison bus is shot and killed, and during violent action on board, the bus sparks while riding against the guardrail and then tips over, going end over end, violently throwing Kimble and others around. Seeing a train coming, Kimble then scrambles to get a wounded guard out of the bus, and then scrambles to jump out just in time. The train hits the bus, sparks fly all over, and the train pushes the bus, which is on fire inside. Two of the train cars disconnect and one jumps the track, heading towards Kimble, who runs alongside a burning train car while in leg restraints. He jumps down and the car passes over him, and all the remaining cars crash behind it and stop. Kimble shields himself from an explosion and possible debris and then all is silent. While driving a stolen ambulance, Kimble spots a police trooper after him, and Kimble weaves in between the outbound and inbound lanes of a road he's on to try to lose him. In a tunnel, Kimble nearly sideswipes some cars driving in the opposite lane. Kimble leaves the ambulance, and after arriving, the cops, Gerard and his crew cock their guns on the way to encountering Kimble, at least believing that they are. They don't find him in the ambulance and Gerard and Cosmo go down into the storm drain system sloshing through water. At one point, Kimble finds Gerard's gun in the water and holds him at gunpoint, then leaves with it, and Gerard gets up after and pulls out a gun from his ankle holster. At a ledge, overlooking a huge waterfall, Gerard holds Kimble at gunpoint, asking him if he wants to get shot and demanding that he put the gun down. Kimble puts his hands behind his head as he's told, but then jumps and falls a long way down through the waterfall. Kimble walks into a prosthetic limb lab where one man is getting fitted with a prosthetic arm, or at least the beginning of one. He has no hand or lower arm. After, Kimble walks into a room that has prosthetic legs and arms hanging from hooks. Some of that might be unsettling to some viewers. GUNS/WEAPONS Rifles/Handguns/A revolver/A makeshift knife: Carried and/or used to threaten, wound or kills others. See "Violence" for details. IMITATIVE BEHAVIOR Phrases: "Oh/Aw/Holy sh*t "Do you want to change your bullsh*t story, Sir?" "That's bullsh*t," "How about bullsh*t?" "What the hell is that?" "The hell with you," "Kiss my ass," "My, my, my, my, my what a mess," "Son of a bitch," "He's hauling ass," "What the hell's going on in here?" "You gotta be kidding me!" "He's finally flipped his lid," "Remember, opera ain't over 'till the big dog howls," "Ruff ruff!" "Right on your ass, buddy," "Get your ass in there," "I want out of here!" "Shut up!" "Don't argue with the big dog. The big dog is always right," "Aroo aroo aroo!" "Andiamo bambini," "What you do to my baby?" "Hinky" and "Jeez." An officer at the penitentiary takes a roll call of the prisoners and calls for Copeland who, in a nasty tone, answers "What?" Kimble runs alongside a burning train car. Kimble jumps off a high ledge into the water to escape Gerard. Gerard and Newman stumble about briefly in order to imitate being drunk so as to blend into the area and not startle anyone before they raid a house, and Gerard tells Newman to be drunk. Some may be inclined to imitate the broken English of the Polish landlady who shows Kimble around an apartment. JUMP SCENES In one shot, Helen is laying in bed and Kimble leans down to kiss her, and then there's a quick cut to him giving her CPR, punctuated by a sudden, loud, metallic noise. MUSIC (SCARY/TENSE) An extreme amount of tense music occurs in the film. MUSIC (INAPPROPRIATE) None PROFANITY At least 15 "s" words, 5 hells, 1 S.O.B, 4 asses, 1 use each of "Jesus" and "Oh Jesus." SEX/NUDITY At the fundraiser, a man's wife, Cara, wears a backless dress and shows some cleavage. Women parade on a catwalk, wearing three kinds of leopard-print swimsuits. All show some cleavage and one swimsuit design is backless. As one woman walks away from the front of the catwalk, the lower parts of her bottom can be seen, separated by the backside of the swimsuit. Helen wears a spaghetti-strap dress showing slight cleavage. Kimble tells Helen that he has to go back to the hospital to help out in an emergency surgery procedure and she tells him that she'll wait up for him, presumably meaning that there'll be sex. In a later flashback, this is true, with Helen on top of him and his hand reaching up to her face, and then her lying down and Kimble on top of her, both kissing. In an examination room at a hospital, Kimble sits shirtless and a quarter pantsless, as he fixes himself up. SMOKING Gerard smokes a cigar once. TENSE FAMILY SCENES Kimble's wife Helen is murdered and at the start of the film as well as in other flashbacks, we see how it happened and what Kimble does to try to find the murderer and clear his own name. TOPICS TO TALK ABOUT Kimble is wrongly accused of murdering his wife and his insistence that a one-armed man did it goes ignored by the police because of him being the most likely suspect, what with her being very rich, as it's claimed. The role of law enforcement in catching escaped criminals. "The Fugitive" is not just an action/adventure/drama/thriller, but also a study in how characters can be built up bit by bit, even when a film is all about one long chase. Throughout his career, Harrison Ford has played characters that are put in some sort of danger that seems insurmountable and through sheer ingenuity, seem to get out of danger. Throughout his career, Tommy Lee Jones has played characters that are always searching for something, be it for an agency like the Men in Black, or as a villain, like in Under Siege. VIOLENCE Black-and-white footage at the opening credits shows an assailant going after Helen, holding her roughly by the shoulders and in the next shot, his arm wrapped around her neck. He throws her to the floor and her face hits a glass bedside table on the way down. She raises a gun at him, but he pushes her arm down and sits on top of her. He pushes the gun to her, we hear a gunshot, and she lets out a strangled noise that marks the end of her. In subsequent scenes, these flashbacks are given more detail and more color, such as it being shown that Helen's head hit a corner of the bedside table. In another flashback, as an incoherent Helen struggles after being shot, a latex-gloved hand picks up a round paperweight, raises it, and the sickening sound is heard of a skull being crushed. Kimble tussles with the assailant, who grabs at him and punches him, then Kimble throws him down the stairs. In another shot, Helen is seen lying next to the phone, breathing laboredly, slowly dialing 911. Then, she dies. Partida, one of the prisoners on the bus, starts having a seizure and when one of the guards unlocks the metal cage door and goes to look, Partida stabs him with a makeshift knife. The portly guard shoots Partida dead. The guard and another prisoner struggle for the gun, and it goes off, killing the driver, and part of the windshield glass breaks. The guard clocks the prisoner in the face with the head of the rifle and then the butt, cocking the rifle after and trying to shoot at the prisoner. During that violent action on board, the bus sparks while riding against the guardrail and then tips over, going end over end, throwing Kimble and others around. Seeing a train coming, Kimble then scrambles to get a wounded guard out of the bus, and scrambles to jump out just in time. The train hits the bus, sparks fly all over, and the train pushes the bus, which is on fire inside. Two of the train cars disconnect and one jumps the track, heading towards Kimble, who runs alongside a burning train car while in leg restraints. He jumps down and the car passes over him, and all the remaining cars crash behind it and stop. Kimble shields himself from an explosion and possible debris and then all is silent. Gerard and his team descend upon where Copeland is shacked up, and with his gun out, Gerard kicks down the door of the house. Cosmo throws the door to the floor and moves on. While looking around, Newman is grabbed by Copeland and he lets it be known to Gerard that he's got one of his men and he has a set of demands. Before he can finish them, Gerard backs stealthily into the same room on the other side and shoots Copeland twice in the head. One of Gerard's men kicks open another door after hearing this, with guns very much at the ready, but Gerard says to everyone that it's all over. Gerard and Kimble are in the same building, Kimble to visit who he believes might be his wife's murderer and Gerard to check something out. Gerard spots him and Kimble rushes down the winding stairs of the building. Gerard loudly demands that the building be secured and Kimble barely makes it through the closing automatic doors, with his foot getting stuck. Gerard fires at Kimble and he stumbles, looking like he was shot, but he merely falls to the floor and removes his foot from in between the doors and runs outside. Knowing that he's found the house of the man who he believes murdered his wife, Kimble breaks a window and takes down the remaining glass and then kicks in the wood beams that lay across the window from the inside, and goes into the house. A man holds a gun at Kimble on an elevated train and a transit cop in another car is told by a passenger that Kimble is on board and the cop goes to investigate, sees that it's him, and calls out for him with gun in hand, but the man wheels around and fires three shots into the cop. Kimble jumps to the emergency brake and pulls it. He then punches the man in the face and bangs his right arm against a pole, trying to make him drop the gun. The man gets Kimble in the face with his upper arm. Kimble takes the man's left arm, and brings it to the floor and the gun goes off, and then Kimble brings it backwards and gets the gun. Kimble punches the man in the face again and kicks him in the stomach. He then coldcocks the man and the man falls to the floor. After getting the transit cop's guns and handcuffs, Kimble takes one of the man's hands and cuffs it to a pole, and then grabs the man by his hair and slams his head against the door, knocking him out. Kimble confronts another man in a hotel ballroom during a medical conference and the man discreetly tries to get Kimble to talk with him privately, and Kimble shoves the man, demanding to know if he killed another man. The man and Kimble end up in a presidential suite where the man bashes Kimble on his back with a chair. Kimble tackles in the man in his midsection, but the man catches Kimble and throws him to the floor. The man then punches Kimble in his ribcage and shoves Kimble away and then shoves him again, against a wall. Kimble grabs the man by the lapels and knees him in the groin, and wheels him around, out a door and partway over a railing overlooking the city outside. Kimble punches the man in the face, then kicks him in the gut, sending him feet over head down some metal stairs. Kimble punches the man in the groin and then in the face. As the man tries to regain his composure, Kimble tackles him from behind and they land hard on a glass roof and pieces are seen falling. Kimble punches the man again and the glass breaks more after the man falls back. Kimble grabs the man and they fall through the roof, onto the top of an elevator. The man gets up from inside the elevator, notices Kimble on the roof of it, stops the elevator and gets out. But before the door closes, Kimble's bloodied hand reaches out and stops it. At this point, Gerard shouts at Kimble that he knows he's there and the building is secure, so he can't go anywhere. The man, staggering a little and bloodied, takes a steel beam that's hanging low and sends it sailing toward Cosmo who turns at the last second and is hit in the face. The man then points a gun at Gerard, but Kimble, having retrieved a metal pipe a second before, bashes the man on the leg with it and then on his back. The man falls over and just lays there. Reviewed off DVD / Posted May 21, 2010