THE FUGITIVE: 4K UHD (Warner Bros., 1993) Warner Home Video
A man betrayed. A crime to solve.
The chase begins. Loosely based on the landmark television series that ran on
ABC from 1963-1967, director, Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive (1993) is a
character-driven, roller coaster ride with few equals. Certainly, no thriller
since The Fugitive has come anywhere close to recapturing its
antagonistic buddy-buddy chemistry, unexpectedly to blossom between wrongfully-accused/convicted
murderer, Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) and caustic U.S. Marshal, Samuel
Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones). The hunted and the hunter. These guys are at each
other’s throats in a perilous race against time to get to the truth behind the
one-armed man. The Fugitive hails from a real ‘golden epoch’ in American-made
actioners, a formula resurrected in the seventies, refined in the eighties, and
utterly perfected in the nineties, yet without ever appearing formulaic. At its
crux lies a real yen for Hitchcock’s oft-celebrated ‘wrong man in the wrong
place and time.’ What would we ever
do if movie heroes didn’t periodically find themselves on the short end of a
dangling tether with the noose tightened around their necks and the law telescopically
closing in, without first to reconsider whether or not they actually had
their man?
From its shocking opener – a murder
for hire and frame-up of the innocent and grief-stricken good doctor, through a
perilous train derailment, a certain-death swan dive off a raging dam, two
slickly executed ‘near captures/escapes’ – the first, inside a hospital, the
other, at the Department of Corrections – and the penultimate showdown between
Kimball and his arch nemesis, Charles Nichols (played to perfection by the deliciously
diabolical, Jeroen Krabbe), The Fugitive takes its audience on so many
hair-pin/hair-raising spectacles to shiver and delight, its 130-minutes appear
as a movie half its length. The Fugitive lands smack in the middle of Harrison
Ford’s best years, the actor’s odyssey begun, not with his lionized turn as
everybody’s favorite intergalactic rogue, Han Solo in the original Star Wars
trilogy, but rather with 1985’s Witness – a turning point in the way
Hollywood viewed his range, now skewed more towards dashing leading man, carried
over into Working Girl (1988) and Regarding Henry (1991) – both,
illustrating Ford’s lighter, and far more intuitive side. Only the year before,
Ford had reasserted his ‘other’ image as John Grisham’s Jack Ryan in Patriot
Games (1992). Dr. Richard Kimble is pretty much the antithesis of Jack Ryan
– a man unwittingly made the scapegoat and left rudderless to fend for himself.
In preparing The Fugitive,
director, Davis went through countless permutations of the screenplay, a
gestation of approximately twenty-years before producer, Arnold Kopelson was
given the green light over at Warner Bros. Even then, Kopelson received polite
‘advice’ he was making a serious mistake. No one had attempted to condense a
popular TV series into a movie since Hecht-Lancaster’s production of Marty
(1955). But Kopelson had a gut feeling about the project’s success. So did
Davis, who tinkered throughout the shoot. Screenwriters, Jeb Stuart and David
Twohy were put on constant standby as the story evolved. Never in doubt: the
exoneration of Kimble. Somewhere along the way, editor, Dean Goodhill came up
with the idea of eliminating virtually all of Kimble’s backstory. Instead, we
are given a barely six-minute prologue told in flashback, intercutting the
murder of Kimble’s wife, Helen (Sela Ward) with his incarceration and
conviction. Lost in translation: Julianne Moore’s Dr. Anne Eastman. Though
Moore and the character do survive in the final cut – the part is now barely a
cameo. In the original, Eastman became Richard’s new love interest and his
valiant ally on the outside, pursuing her own avenues in his exculpatory search
for the truth. As shooting progressed, improvisation became an integral part of
the film-maker’s acumen. The scene where Richard is relentless pursued by
Gerard down the stairs at county lock up was given an added kick by Harrison
Ford, who suggested Gerard fire his service revolver into the plate glass only
to discover it is bullet proof. This scene is, of course, a flub, as U.S.
Marshals do not have the authority to fire on an unarmed man who does not
present an immediate threat to anyone.
In hindsight, Davis has conceded much
of the momentum in The Fugitive was resolved in the editing room. As
example; the sequence where Gerard, after having slipped down a shaft inside a
drainage tunnel, suddenly discovers he is at Kimble’s mercy, initially
contained some fairly extensive exposition. Both men want to make their stake
in the chase pointedly clear. Davis, however, elected to throw out the entire
scene – save, it’s phenomenally succinct punchline.
Richard: “I didn’t kill my
wife.”
Gerard: “I don’t care!”
For the train wreck, Davis used a
real locomotive, dragged on cables. Harrison Ford performed his own stunt work
while nervous insurance agents looked on. The derailment, spectacular and
untainted by all but a fleeting glimpse of CGI in post-production, remains one
of the most harrowing examples of full-scale action ever put on film. The
Fugitive’s set pieces, including the wreck and dam sequences, the ‘getting
lost in the crowd’ escape during Chicago’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade,
and, the showdown between the one-armed man and Kimble aboard an elevated train,
are all exemplars of how to make a breathtaking action/adventure. But good
stunts do not necessarily a great film make. So, The Fugitive also
distinguishes itself in the subtler moments and dialogue-driven scenes. Most of
these are handed over to the brilliant Tommy Lee Jones who plays to the cynical
comedy with a streak of chronically dismayed ennui - justly celebrated and
appealing. When underling, Cosmo Renfro (Joe Pantoliano) wickedly infers he
hopes to someday ‘grow up’ to be just like his mentor, Jones – as Gerard
– pessimistically smacks back, “How’s that? Happy and handsome?” –
neither of which, ostensibly, Gerard is. Almost from the outset, The
Fugitive gets the audience invested in the Kimble/Gerard relationship. The
antagonism is palpable and genuine and it sells the pic as a queer buddy/buddy
flick, in which the two participants are strangely working opposite sides of
the room, yet steadily being brought to a mutual understanding of what makes
the other tick.
The Fugitive opens with
Helen’s murder. Richard is suspected of the crime almost immediately by
Detective Kelly (Ron Dean). His story of struggling with a one-armed man, Sykes
(Andreas Katsulas) is regarded as implausible. Hence, we fast track through a
series of flashbacks illustrating what really happened the night Helen died. Kimble
and his wife attended a charity fashion show where he was introduced to Dr.
Lentz (David Darlow) by fellow colleague, Dr. Charles Nichols (Jeroen Krabbe). On
the car ride back home, Richard is called away for an emergency assist. Helen
returns to their fashionable townhouse alone with thoughts of creating a
romantic evening for her husband’s return. Regrettably, Sykes is already in the
house. He brutally assaults Helen, crushing her skull with a piece of art deco
sculpture moments before Richard’s arrival. The 9-1-1 call Helen makes before
succumbing to another blow to her head is manipulated at trial and
inadvertently used as proof of Richard’s complicity in the crime.
Sentenced to die by lethal
injection, Richard is loaded onto a bus with other inmates bound for a maximum-security
federal penitentiary. A staged confrontation between the inmates and the accompanying
officers (Frank Ray Perilla and Otis Wilson) causes the bus to run off the
road, flip over and roll onto open railroad tracks. The bus is then T-boned by
an oncoming freight train. Kimble narrowly escapes being crushed under the
locomotive. He is assisted by fellow inmate, Copeland (Eddie Bo Smith Jr.) who
has found the keys to their leg irons.
Copeland takes off in one direction, Kimble in the other, with U.S.
Marshall Samuel Gerard arriving shortly thereafter to pick apart the guard’s
statement - all of the inmates perished in the fiery crash. Gerard takes
command of the investigation away from a rather cocky, Sheriff Rawlins (Nick
Searcy). The dragnet spreads far and wide. But Richard still manages to elude
Gerard for a time, stealing coveralls from an automotive garage; then, sneaking
into a nearby hospital where he treats his own wounds sustained in the crash
before making off with an elderly patient’s lunch, clothes and money.
Unfortunately, the surviving guard
from the wreck is being treated at the same hospital and identifies Richard on
his way out. Richard steals an ambulance and Gerard and his men make chase by
helicopter, converging on a dam. Richard abandons the ambulance inside a
tunnel, then narrowly escapes by jumping from a drainage hole, seemingly to his
death in the raging waters far below. While Gerard has the local authorities
dredge the spillway for a body, Richard manages his escape further downstream,
eventually renting a room from a Polish landlady (Monika Chabrowski) whose son
(Lonnie Sima), unbeknownst to Richard, is a drug dealer. In the meantime,
Gerard gets a lead, so we are led to believe…on Richard. Instead, Gerard and
his men bust in on Copeland who has shacked up with his ex-girlfriend (Lillie
Richardson). In the resulting chaos, one of Gerard’s agents, Newman (Tom Wood)
is temporarily taken hostage. But Gerard saves the day by shooting Copeland
dead.
We return to Richard’s boarding
house. Police descend in a sting operation, but not to apprehend Richard,
rather to arrest the landlady’s drug-dealing son. Richard re-enters his old
life, stealing a janitorial I.D. This allows him access to the prosthetics
department where he begins to investigate and learn the identity of the
one-armed man who murdered Helen. Richard is spotted, though not identified by
Dr. Anne Eastman who suspects him of being more than a night cleaner after she
asks him to take a wounded boy (Joel Robinson) up to radiology. Instead,
Richard reads the X-ray and realizes the boy will die without immediate
surgical intervention. He changes the boy’s charts to indicate the life-saving
surgery, then disappears. Richard also contacts Dr. Nichols and confides his
findings: that Sykes knew Lentz. When Nichols informs Richard, Lentz is dead in
an apparent auto accident, Richard is baffled. His exoneration is at a
standstill. Now, Richard alerts Gerard of Sykes’ whereabouts. As such, Gerard
begins to suspect Richard may be innocent after all.
In the meantime, Richard has
deduced Nichols helped falsify research on a new vascular drug, Provasic to
ensure the drug company involved in funding its research would not be open to
scrutiny or failure, despite knowing the new compound is proven to cause cancer
in its patients. Realizing Nichols was behind Helen’s murder, and most likely
Lentz’ accident too, Richard makes plans to confront Nichols at a drug
conference. In the meantime, Nichols has instructed Sykes to kill Richard.
Sykes makes his attempt aboard a moving El-train, shooting a transit cop (Neil
Flynn) before Richard manages to subdue and handcuff Sykes to one of the
overhead metal poles. Richard then hurries to the conference where Nichols is its
keynote speaker and confronts him before a packed audience. Nichols makes light
of the incident in a feeble attempt to save face. However, once alone, he
assaults Richard. Gerard arrives, but is too late to prevent Richard and
Nichols plummet through a glass roof onto an elevator that stops in the hotel’s
laundry. Nichols attempts to murder Gerard with a gun taken from fellow agent,
Cosmo Renfro whom he has already knocked unconscious. Aside: in the original finale,
Cosmo dies. But Pantoliano pleaded with his director to let his character live
– a fortuitous decision when Davis decided to do the sequel - U.S. Marshals
(1998) in which Pantoliano reprises his role. Our story concludes with Richard
thwarting Nichols attempted murder of Gerard. Momentarily escorted from the
scene in handcuffs by Gerard to avoid the media frenzy, Richard is set free
once the car is at a distance.
I will simply paraphrase a line
from Yul Brynner here – “It was all quite good until the end.” There is
a natural build-up to the thriller/actioner. But The Fugitive’s finale
is something of a quiet letdown. The penultimate confrontation between Nichols
and Richard is over too quickly. Movie endings are always the toughest nut to
crack. Too few conclude the way we might have hoped or expected. While The
Fugitive’s ending is not terrible, it is much too swiftly resolved, almost
in a perfunctory way. One wishes for ‘something’ more from the Richard/Gerard
chemistry, or perhaps, even an epilogue with Richard beginning life anew after
his ordeal. It’s a minor quibbling, perhaps, as otherwise, the bulk of the
movie roars with considerable ease, the characters expertly fleshed out and
sustained throughout. It all works with considerable visual flare besides. When
The Fugitive had its world premiere it was an immediate sensation,
becoming one of the most profitable hits of the season. Since, The Fugitive
has remained a deftly exciting thriller. Does it represent the very best of its
ilk? Debatable. But it has great moments that hold it together, in spite of its
leaden finale.
The Fugitive arrives in
native 4K, remastered off an original camera negative as part of Warner Bros.
100th anniversary and easily bests the remastered Blu-ray edition
from 2013. Unlike some 4K releases that do not appear to advance all that much
over their Blu-ray predecessors, The Fugitive in 4K is a ‘night and day’
experience. Image stabilization is
incredible and color fidelity and saturation are fully realized. Flesh tones
look incredibly natural. The harsh winter hues are offset by the warm interiors
– both subtly nuanced as razor sharp to boot. The Blu-ray had an intermittent
hint of edge-enhancement. That’s gone in 4K. Warner has pulled out all the
stops for The Fugitive with a Dolby Atmos 7.1 mix. They have also
included the old 5.1 DTS. The Atmos is the way to go. Talk about an immersive
aural experience. The big action set-pieces now immerse the listener in a frenetic
sonic thrill ride, while the more quiescent moments carry a subtler ambiance
that, again, makes them feel more genuine and stirring. We get the same extras –
an intro from director, Davis and Harrison Ford, and audio commentary from
Davis and Tommy Lee Jones, a ‘retrospective’ – Thrill of the Chase,
and, 2 vintage docs covering a lot of the same ground. Lost in translation –
the pilot episode from 2008’s short-relived reboot of The Fugitive TV
franchise that was on the old Blu-ray release. Bottom line: The Fugitive
is still a bang for the buck actioner with guts and gusto. In 4K it gets
revived to a level unseen since its theatrical release. Very highly
recommended!
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
3.5
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