The Fugitive (1993)
I didn’t kill my wife!
THE SUMMARY: A learned doctor is wrongfully sentenced to execution for the murder of his wife, but escapes custody to learn that big pharma sent amputee Sam Bankman-Fried to kill her because he knew too much. A couple of preposterous premises and a bit of an unsatisfying ending aside, it’s a perfectly enjoyable movie for reminiscing about a time when Pfizer was viewed skeptically, instead of worshipped.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER SWIFTNER: An iconic Harrison Ford film - he damaged some ligaments in his leg during the filming of the scenes in the woods. He refused to take surgery until the end of filming so that his character would keep the limp. The limp can be seen in any subsequent scene where Richard Kimble is running. The film was shot in 73 days, and had one of the fastest turnaround post-production schedules, as the film was pushed up to a release date in August 1993.
THE BEST:
Big pharma is a villain, you know: At this point I’m so jaded, any skepticism of the industry is nearly an automatic five-Wicky award. It’s not even that this plot is so creative - a seemingly good guy turns out to be a bad guy and deploys bad guy methods to protect his bad guy investments. That’s cookie-cutter villain stuff. It’s just that I don’t think we have the cultural balls to apply that basic logic to the pharmaceutical industry anymore. They don’t even have to be universal villains! But yes, when medication brings massive quantities of money, there will always be temptation to make moral sacrifices in pursuit of the dollar. I wish we had a culture still connected with that reality.
Often the law doesn’t care: The sewer scene is a great combination of suspense, philosophy, and even metaphor. It’s poetic to watch a government agent convinced of his own righteousness chase an innocent man to near suicide… through actual sewage. Or at least runoff rainwater.
But the best of this scene isn’t implied or metaphorical at all - it’s perfectly explicit. Cornered, Kimble yells at Gerard, ‘I didn’t kill my wife!’ Gerard replies honestly, ‘I don’t care!’
It’s not even that Gerard is a bad guy, necessarily. It’s just that he has a specific job to do, and that job is not evaluating Kimble’s guilt or innocence on the charge for which he was convicted. The law considers Kimble to be a guilty runaway. Gerard’s only task is to secure that runaway. The runaway’s innocence is not a relevant consideration.
That’s a philosophically fascinating point, because in this context it seems obvious a good guy would care. A good guy would take Kimble’s case into consideration, and if he’s innocent, refrain from this chase at all, or perhaps let him go. It sounds appealing in a case in which we are certain of the runaway’s innocence, but the trouble is such a case is extremely rare. The downside and danger of a police officer who takes the law into his own hands is the erosion of the legal process entirely. In that scenario, we don’t have a justice system by the people. We have a justice system by the whims of the cop assigned to that case, whether he decides to be forgiving or harsh that particular day.
Some might argue that’s what we already have, actually. And there are points in their corner. That’s why it’s a philosophically interesting debate. But I don’t want the law made up on the spot. I want the law to exist according to a process under the people’s control.
The law doesn’t care
Safe and effective!
THE WORST:
The dam dive is just plain silly: As much as I appreciate the sewer scene, the end with the dive over the dam is downright preposterous. Nobody survives such a fall, and even if Kimble did, he’d likely be seriously injured. Instead it’s just a calm, easy walk-away event, but I suppose he already did a similar walk-away from an insane bus crash turned train crash. Either way, I can at least respect the effort and the danger in production. Harrison Ford stood right on the edge of the dam, secured by a safety wire, of course. And not some Hollywood set edge. Th edge of an actual dam in North Carolina. Plus I can appreciate Gerard’s great line, ‘the guy did a Peter Pan off of this dam, right here!’
A home intruder really went completely undetected?: I understand the premise is that Kimble’s conviction isn’t just wrong, it’s intentionally wrong at the direction of powerful, well-funded influences. But I still scratch my head at the idea that the one-armed man Sykes could physically invade the home, physically fight and kill Kimble’s wife, physically fight Kimble, walk out injured, and leave no trace of his presence in the home. Kimble’s alibi (and the actual truth) is a straightforward one - a home intruder killed his wife. That being the first description given to police, it would likely be the first sort of evidence for which police search.
And that evidence from a sustained physical fight in the home would be numerous - fingerprints, hair, blood, footprints, etc. The corruption necessary for no investigator to look for or find such things would have to be universal - every single agent on the team would have to look the other way, all the way through the investigation and trial, and say nothing. But I suppose if there ever was a corruption deep enough, it would be big pharma corruption.
The ending is unsatisfying: That’s it? Just a drive away in a cop car? Even if Kimble is now exonerated by the evidence, there’s a legal process for that. Am I supposed to believe all the corruption just went away and the evidence is now suddenly honored? Why? It could be as simple as a governor’s pardon, I suppose, but that could be tied up in a minute or less. The bad guys Nichols and Sykes get arrested, but we get no demonstration of their fate? It’d be good to see just a moment of their convictions to close as well. The movie’s original premise of a wrongful conviction could be nicely corrected. Instead, they just drop it.
Kimble died here. It should be the end of the movie.
That’s it? Just a drive away?
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. This review may read more critical than it actually is. I wouldn’t put The Fugitive on any all-time lists, but it is consistently tense, action-packed, and thoughtful about the nature of good and evil as it applies to the justice system and corporate medicine.
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NEXT WEEK: The Last Samurai (2003) - I look forward to Tom Cruise’s cultural appropriation.
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