Midweek Mention... The Fugitive

The Fugitive

Reegs: Blob Dad's Film Review.

Dan: you know, not to,

to run away with it, but this is the Fuse Div, isn't it?

Sidey: Yeah was there a thematic through line for this week's choices?

Dan: It could have been, I suppose, if you're creative enough to find it, then do let us

Reegs: yeah, absolutely there is, because this is about the, it's sort of, the conspiracy at the heart of this is about the invention of a new drug, so that fits into your invention

Sidey: invention. Oh yeah

Dan: it is,

yeah,

Sidey: Nice, well done. Yeah, Fugitive, a 1993 Harrison Ford joint.

Dan: Yeah, I watched this first time round, did any of you catch it?

Sidey: What?

in

Dan: don't

Reegs: 93?

Sidey: I don't think I saw it in 93, but I

Dan: 93. Yes it

Sidey: Yes it was. I don't think I saw it at the cinema or anything.

Dan: saw it at the cinema I think.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: I knew several of the moments from it before I'd watched it, because they had already permeated other parts

Sidey: They were so I think part of the whole promotional thing and so it's called the fugitive. So the way it starts is you get a like a helicopter shot of the city intercut with the home invasion going on. And so in in one, you don't know who it is, but we know who it is. Because we've seen all the promotional stuff that he's going, he's going to be a fugitive.

It's in the title. He's wrongly accused. There's no surprise in that bit of it. I think

Dan: No you're right.

Reegs: Although they do try and show early on because after that, the aftermath, when he comes home he's looking shocked being interviewed by the police.

He has actually got like claw marks on

Sidey: give everything away straight. There's a few more flashbacks that reveal a bit more.

Reegs: but like you say, the promotional material already told you this was an innocent

Dan: Yeah. It might keep one finger or two fingers on the thought that, or maybe he did do it. Is it going to trick me later on? Is it going to be a thing? But It doesn't really seriously go along with it because he's Harrison Ford and you're going to be rooting for him

at some

Reegs: Ford and you're going to be rooting for him at some point. It was like the first ever kind of show to do that. And it was huge. It was watched by, I think that year it was watched by more people than watched the Superbowl. So this was a, yeah, it was a phenomenon, this TV series that this was based on.

Reegs: And I think

he was innocent in that. So that is part of probably the baggage that it brings to it anyway.

Dan: And, and so what we, we do in it does skip back and forward, particularly during the beginning of the, the film in what had happened during that night and little flashbacks and things. But we know

Reegs: yeah because your hand is held all the way through the plot so that you know stuff because it's very dense

Sidey: He

Dan: a two hour film, isn't it? He

Sidey: home. And finds those. His wife is dead, right? We know that. He's then picked up by the police and there's news people there that they're talking about him by name. He's obviously really well known. He's a vascular, cardiovascular surgeon.

Reegs: And he was at a big conference of surgeons and

Sidey: Do's and called away to perform or to

Dan: he was at I think a children's charity fundraiser, and then he got called away to save some other guy's life. The wife was warming up the house, if you like, and getting ready for

Sidey: was ready for sexy time. She's throwing rose petals all around the floor. And it does whistle through quite a lot of stuff

Dan: of stuff.

Sidey: So he, he's arrested. They interrogate him. It's an open and shut case for them. There's a there's a mistake.

Reegs: he, he, he, she, he stands to inherit a lot of money

Sidey: there's a life insurance thing. And even though he's independently wealthy through his work, she is more wealthy. And there's a confusion around the 911 call because she says, Richard, in almost dying breaths, he's still in the house, he's still in the house, but the 911 operators, they're thinking, Oh, well, that's.

Dan: that's a

Reegs: bad

Sidey: It does, it doesn't sound great in the cold light of day.

Dan: So motive was money.

Reegs: And his prints are on the gun as well.

'cause he picked it up. 'cause we saw that in his shock at the scene. That's right. So,

Dan: And it's, it looks to be, you know, an open and cut

Reegs: It is Dan. 'cause 13 minutes in, he's declared guilty and he shunted off to

Sidey: prison.

He's on death row.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And it, it is a famous case across America, the. You know, the vascular surgeon, the heart surgeon who kills his wife and he's shunted off and we see him going to be transferred to another prison.

Sidey: train

crash thing that where he escapes, which has been done in the Simpsons. So, you know, it's big and also then the, the, the jump from the dam again, I think done in the

Reegs: Yeah. And millions of

Sidey: other things as well. And they happen like really early on, right up front which I had seen this before, but it was like, Oh, we're fucking out of the jump is

like

Dan: well they, they, they have this He's not involved in the escape of them getting off this bus. So it's heading on this bus and one guy fakes being choked.

Sidey: They do the old, you know, like Leah in Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi when she does the really unsubtle nod. Yeah. It's like that when they look at each other in the, in the bus here, they're like, let's do it now. They're like nodding each other.

You're like, oh, here we

Dan: And he shivs him with a tooth. Yeah, sharpened toothbrush. And then he shoots one of the guys. I think the bus

Reegs: It is the bus driver gets it in the head, which

Dan: bus rolls over and it ends up on a train track. Richard Kimball's still been.

You know, he can save the guy who's been shot, so the, the policeman gives him the keys to open his his padlocks, his chains, his handcuffs, and Then he runs out. He sees his trains coming and the other coppers out the door. He goes, Oh, I'm not sticking around. But Kimball manages to get this guy out just before

Sidey: He's still a medical man, you know, he's

Dan: Still a medical man. And he saves this guy's life and he runs in shackles just in time to get out there the way this train, which, you know, massive crash and

Reegs: everything.

He sort of jumps off the roof of it, like, or the side of it, as the train hits it. It's

Dan: just a little bridge and he's just about made it. 90 minutes later, Tommy Lee Jones is on the scene and he's calling, he's the deputy, he takes straight away over the

Sidey: He's the U. S. Marshal.

Dan: he's a US Marshal and he's like, right, we've got a fugitive.

Reegs: He knows the guard, the guard comes out and tells him the story, oh I freed everybody, I'm the hero, sort of thing, and he knows it's bullshit straight

Sidey: of thing. He knows it's bullshit straight away. And they're like, Oh, right.

I usually expect to see shackles with some fucking prisoners in them. This is now my, you know, takes every jurisdiction immediately dishes out a load of instructions.

Reegs: know, takes over jurisdiction, immediately dishes out a load of, He, he wants to be two

Dan: He wants to be two steps ahead, but Kimball's clever and he finds himself a step behind no matter how good he is. So he starts this this chase and he puts up a, you know, a ring around, but he manages to find his way through this.

And he gets, he gets to some relative safety, doesn't he?

Reegs: He gets to a hospital. He go, he, he sort of, changes his disguise, steals a bit foods and some medical supplies

Yeah,

Sidey: can cut that off. And that's part one of the

Dan: Yeah, he grew that,

Sidey: that's why I wanted to be in

Reegs: And he sees the g as the, as he's leaving the hospital there's like a guy who's been sent in to look for him. Because he's wearing a doctor's outfit and he's like, have you seen a guy's like 6'1 180 pounds, brown hair? He's like, yeah, every day when I look in the

Dan: every day,

Reegs: no beard. And then as he's walking out the hospital, they're wheeling the guy, they found the guy that he saved and he's on a gurney and he's just wheeling him in.

Dan: and

he even says, Oh, you're going to have to, you know, check out for a a puncture wound into his lung and he goes, how did he tell that from like, you know, just a quick glance? He ends up saying i've just seen kimball at the at the hospital and given him away So they know that he's stolen an ambulance now and he's on it on his way And this,

Sidey: Right, so this is

Dan: what leads up to him doing this massive jump over the dam

Reegs: Oh, it's more the scene between them. I love it because you, you get this cat and mouse stuff in the tunnels of the dam where he's abandoned the thing

Sidey: a little bit third man, isn't it?

Reegs: bit third man, whatever. And again, it ends up with Tommy Lee Jones

Sidey: drops his gun, doesn't

Reegs: and Harrison Ford.

He's dropped his gun and Kimball's got it. And he says, I didn't kill my wife. And he says, I don't care. It's brilliant. Such a great response. Cause he, you know,

Dan: he improv that line

Reegs: he had lived it. Yeah. Nicely. And

Sidey: And then yeah, he's right up at the iconic scene where he's this big pipe just goes out onto a dam and he looks and he looks back and he says don't fucking move. Yeah, don't move. And he goes, he jumps off and you're like, wow.

Reegs: wow. Well, what they show you is it, right, there's some really

Sidey: It looks a bit naked gun this bit.

Reegs: and then there's like a dummy just thrown in and it just falls forever,

Dan: they used five dummies. To shoot that and there were 12, 000 pound of dummy.

Reegs: Wow, it looked terrible!

Dan: looked really bad in a really bad. You might as well just phone over a sack of

potatoes.

Sidey: it's effectively, there is a waterfall element to it, but then it is just a concrete sheer cliff. And he just, it's a bit wet when it gets out. But a kid I was, cause it was like, I straight away could like, would you survive this? And there was a kid, I don't know whether it was Niagara or some, some massive thing that him and his dad sister fell in and they were able to get to the sister but he went over this nine year old kid went over and it was 164 meter drop and was completely unhurt completely fine

Dan: Wow.

They

Sidey: but i wouldn't it's probably unrecommended like i

Reegs: This jump looked about eight kilometres, and it looked like he was twatting off the concrete the

Dan: it, 285 feet or

Sidey: But what, what I'm, what I like about this is that it's, it's a chase movie and a murder mystery movie, but it kind of subverts the chase in the Tommy Lee James is not the bad guy and neither is Kimberley. So you're kind of,

Reegs: bad guy.

Sidey: of ruining. Yeah.

Reegs: is Kimball.

Dan: It's two

a list stars really it seemed that didn't both want to be

Sidey: obviously both super charismatic, like normally you wouldn't, you wouldn't be rooting for Tommy Jones. And you're not like out and out wanting him to catch him, but he's so likable in this as well. The way he carries himself. It's great.

Reegs: So anyway, after the dam, what

Dan: Well, the net's closing on the other guys that have escaped, and they manage to catch Coleman, the one of the other guys that

Reegs: They sort of fake you out with a phone call, Oh, we found the suspect or whatever, and it turns out to be the other guy that was in the van with him.

Dan: But all the time Harrison Ford and Kimble, he's trying to piece together Yeah. The one armed man so in the

Sidey: a bit more of the flashback.

Yeah. Every time it reveals a little bit more. And as he's remembering it, we are seeing it. And,

Reegs: Yeah. And some of the details are really strange. 'cause the, the attacker was, had a mechanical arm.

Sidey: I don't think you would really remember like, 'cause you get to see like the, the inner workings of his prosthetics.

Like, I don't think,

Dan: Well, it was just,

Sidey: a home invasion you would see

Dan: it was just a little flashback, wasn't it? And look, he's, he remembers seeing a hinge in this guy's arm as he was wrestling with him. And he keeps on telling the interrogation, you've got to find this one armed man.

Why are you finding this man? And his whole case is hinged on this, which is why he is found guilty. Cause they can't find a one

Sidey: It doesn't sound

Dan: It doesn't sound that plausible. And they don't do a very good investigation because actually when he does it, you find out. It wasn't that bloody hard.

Sidey: Also in the chase, the expectation is that he'll make a run for the border, right?

He'll just try and get as far away from town as possible. But what happens is he ends up getting spotted or

Reegs: is, he

Sidey: he comes home and they actually say, Oh, he's come home.

Reegs: comes home. They actually say he's come home. Yeah, they piece it back

Sidey: they piece it back together and then they go visit his, Partner one of the other surgeons and he's like, yeah, I saw him.

I helped him And you're like well surely you get done for aiding and abetting like a known fugitive I know I know but at this point you're like wouldn't they like be at least a bit disgruntled about that? It's

Reegs: it's a it's actually a fairly cleverly written scene because the dialogue he talks about he's like, Oh, if you want help, you've come to the wrong man. He's innocent. You know, you'll never find

Sidey: He's too clever for you.

Yeah.

Reegs: all that. It's like a it's one of those just how bad ass is he type speeches, but also it's it's him hiding the fact that he's the guilty party and he knows that this all comes back to him.

Sidey: And because he's come back, and he's told them this story on the night of the murder or during his interrogation, , the US Marshal's. Like, well, why the fuck would he come back? Like, you know,

Dan: know, it's just He's like,

Sidey: he is like,

fuck it. He is actually,

Reegs: is what he believes,

Sidey: is what he believes.

This is, this is something, there's something to all

Dan: and, yeah, maybe there is, maybe there

Sidey: they're like, we've gotta bring him in. But also they're starting to question and they do actually get the, the police in and it's, what the fuck were you after to

Dan: in and it's like, what the fuck were you asking?

Yeah, because, you know, Tommy D. Jones is, he's

Reegs: Yeah, because, you know, Tommy Lee Jones is, he's going to come to over the story, believe his innocence. And like you say, he starts questioning

it, and

Dan: he starts questioning it and all that. If he's then working this case, I'm going to work this case and see where it ends up. And of

Reegs: reason they find that out, isn't it? He goes to the hospital and 'cause he starts looking for, because he remembers all that stuff about the hinge

Sidey: Yeah, he

Reegs: narrows down the, the computer database to find five patients who've got this type of arm. And on the way out he sees Julianne Moore.

Sidey: Julian Moore. Yeah. He's able to effectively like an undocumented, which we'll see in the other movie we watched. He, he's sort of able to fake himself some papers, get himself a night job at the hospital, and then sort of break his way into the prosthetics department and do his own sort of investigation.

Dan: a few weeks might have gone on or a few days anyway, because he's managed to get himself an apartment as well. A real sort of horrible

Sidey: not even a bedsit, is it? It's just a basement. It's a bed in a basement, yeah.

Dan: But it's okay. It's perfect for him what he wants to do. And you see him. He just goes revision boy, doesn't he?

Suddenly becomes an expert in prosthetics. And that's everything he wants to do. He's got armed with a little bit of knowledge and memory that he had from that night. He starts learning about. You know, prosthetics, because he knows he finds that and he will find this guy

Sidey: Yeah, there won't be that many people in the city.

that

Dan: that exactly.

So he finds out this particular joint and everything. And then he gets into the computer records as he's a cleaner and looks at, well, who needed their point adjusting within a month of the accident or the murder.

Gets it down like five people from 120 odd people to five and he starts sort of ticking them off.

One of the guys is in prison. So

Reegs: But there's a good bit on the

Dan: he has to go, yeah, he has to go and check that this isn't the guy. And he's taking huge risks obviously cause he's, he's a wanted criminal himself. And he's, he, he, although he wears a hood the whole way through the film, he never once puts the hood up. Like I was

Sidey: dyed his hair at one point, I

Dan: and then it went blonde, it went browner again.

Sidey: But yeah, with Julianne Moore in the hostel. She's she was like, third credited in the film. She's in it for about

Reegs: She originally had a much bigger

Sidey: Oh, did she? Yeah, she must have done. Yeah, she's

Reegs: going to put her in as a love interest for him and

Sidey: he's having an affair and that's part of the

Dan: of it. Bit

Reegs: know it's a love interest that he has after the fact and

Sidey: That's horny.

Reegs: that's going to make him look like an asshole.

He's still grieving for his wife and they showed you many times about how much in love they were. He rescues

Sidey: Yeah, that doesn't work, does

Reegs: and all that doesn't work.

Sidey: But yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a, boy who's got some sort of trauma. And they've, they're just trying to get him somewhere else in the hospital. And he looks at the kid while he's trying to

Reegs: And the,

Sidey: And, and, and the, the, you know, the doctor in him is just like, know what to

Dan: on. Look,

Sidey: And

And they say, Oh, you, you know, move him through to observations or wherever. And he just, as he's walking away, he looks at his. x rays and G. I. Moore's watching him like, what the fuck is this guy doing? And he just like takes a left hand into the lift, takes him to the operating theater, changes his chart And you know, he just

Dan: just

Sidey: can't help himself.

And it's a,

Reegs: misdiagnosed, doesn't he? Yeah,

Sidey: and it actually does save the boy's life. And then when the police cops arrive, Julian was, Oh, she calls security and he has to do a runner and then they arrive and she's like, well, it was weird. He did all this stuff, but you know, if he did actually save this kid, like he would have died.

But

Dan: Tommy Lee Jones just sort of writes it down, doesn't he? But again, it's another indicator

Sidey: this's not a cold, bloody killer.

Dan: this isn't the, 'cause he had chance to kill him in the tunnel as well.

So there's two or three times he had the chance to you know, the, the copper he saved from the train wreck, the you know, this little kid. And the fact that he didn't shoot him. He's starting to think maybe,

Sidey: but he's, he, like you said, he's got his list of suspects. He's been to the prison now. To see. As soon as he sees the guy, he's

Dan: he's like, Sorry, no, not you.

This guy's, and this guy's going, Come and say something. I think

Sidey: guy, I think he goes to his house and he sees some photographs and he's like, okay.

This is

Reegs: This is the guy, Sykes.

Sidey: who is basically a private it's a security guard for these guys for this big pharmaceutical concern. And he goes through his stuff. He finds the prosthetic in the chest of drawers and it's this photograph of a fishing trip where he sees the other doctor

Reegs: Yeah, I've got his name here,

Dan: Lazarus or something?

Sidey: no it's Levine or something.

Lentz,

Reegs: Dr. Alec

Sidey: Lentz. And he's straight away like, okay, right. And he then, he phones his,

Dr. His surgeon friend from this house knowing that the phones will be bugged, so that he stays on long enough. I know he phones, he

Dan: phones Tommy Lee

Sidey: phones Tommy Jones, doesn't he and stays on long enough for them to trace the call

Reegs: so

Sidey: so that they will go there and find the evidence that he has uncovered.

Dan: it all comes round as we talked about earlier.

It all comes round that this pharmaceutical company wants to get a drug put through the FDA. And it's not going to happen. So they He's

Sidey: He's been, he's been,

Reegs: Kimball's been vocal about it not being effective.

Sidey: been in charge of the research and his samples have shown that it will cause extensive liver damage and he cannot recommend it to be passed and what they've been doing because there's such a huge financial reward for this drug is to falsify The, the samples and they go to the research.

He's got his friend from high school musical is the blonde doctor lady. He goes to

Reegs: and they

Dan: name? No but

Reegs: can

Sidey: Yes. And they go through and they can see that all the samples have been swapped out. And as it turns out, Linz has been killed. Yeah. And the last man standing is Nichols. And penny drops. Fuck. It's, they've, the hit was on him.

He was supposed to have been killed and when they got to the house he wasn't there. The wives discovered him so she's had to be killed. And then they framed him as the next best framed him for the

Reegs: the murder.

And it all comes

to

Dan: it all comes to a head around the big gala ball where nichols is

this drug,

Sidey: He's been promoted to the board.

Dan: in, in front of all the, the Lottie guys and, and the whoopty doos.

And Kimball then walks to the top of the hotel in this in this beautiful suite and he's just staring at him as he's giving this speech and of course everybody just stops and mumbles and whispers and there he is Richard Kimball Richard Kimball he's coming through the door and he just starts exposing him all doesn't he saying you knew this research was bad it goes out Of their because they want to keep the decency in front of everyone, I

Sidey: Oh, he's not well. He's not well. Let me get him some help.

Dan: And and then it starts all kicking off a cat and mouse kind of game between Kimball and Nichols through the pipes and the Industrial area of

Reegs: He goes up onto the roof as well. Tommy Lee Jones calls off a sniper who's going to take him down. They fall through a roof, don't they? And more of that.

Dan: And and also Tommy Lee Jones is saying Richard, come out. We know it's not you. We know that you're innocent. We know that, you know, all the, the evidence that you put together is, is starting to pay off and, and starting to be clear to him. So he's kind of smiling, but Nichols is desperate now. He's already lamped one guy in the, in the

Sidey: Joe Pantoliano,

Dan: pole.

Reegs: as yeah,

Sidey: gets a steel

Dan: And he's got a gun and he's just about to

Reegs: to shoot. Oh, that was so weird though, because it was like on a chain and he, did he see it was, and he, like, it was a girder on a sort of chain that was attached to like an overhead rig and he sort of gently pushes

Sidey: sort of gently pushed it. It was very

Reegs: Gets the drop on him and pipes him off.

Sidey: Basically, yeah. He does,

Dan: on him and pipes him

Reegs: Yeah, and he, has to be taken out in cuffs because he is a wanted man he is a fugitive.

Sidey: But we get the press again, like we had it at the start where they say, oh, Kimball, this time they're grilling the Chicago pd.

And we were saying, did you get the wrong man? Who's this other guy? Is this all true? And he goes past with Tommy Lee Jones into the back of the car and he says, gimme those fucking keys. And he takes his cuffs off and they have a little exchange where he's

Reegs: I thought you didn't care.

I don't. And they laugh. It's like a little, a little sexy thing.

Dan: And that's it. Pan up to the kind of Chicago Nightline as the

car speeds down to set him free and put the wells to right. And that was it. The Fugitive. I still think it stands up, this one. It's still a really good pace I enjoyed it. I mean, it was a couple of hours.

I'm getting wincing looks over here though. Are you, are

Sidey: That's just my poker face. The fucking 10. I fucking love

Dan: Oh, really? Yeah. Oh,

Sidey: Honestly, so, so fucking good.

Dan: It's still a great movie, Harrison Ford. Still looks great. You know, he actually damaged his foot, which is why he limps through a lot of the film. For reals, he kind of did his I think his, maybe it was his knee or his foot.

But he fucked up pretty bad. Like they would keep you out of football games and everything. But he had to still battle on and soldier on.

Sidey: You into it, Riggs?

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, this is like one of those great, like 90s thrillers. There's like no subtext or theme or anything.

It's just two A

Sidey: great, yeah.

Reegs: and like a conspiracy theory, you know, procedural thing and like, it's great. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. It doesn't have, not that I'm not like a slight on the director, but no one's trying to show off or doing anything silly or like reinvent the wheel.

It's just like, this is great. Yeah, the script is great. The story is great. These two guys are fucking great. Yeah. And we're just gonna put everything front and center and it fucking works. Ah, it's knockout.

Dan: And, you know, you think now, what's that 30 years

old?

Sidey: Yeah. Fuck. 31.

Reegs: year as Jurassic Park and all

Dan: 31 years old, nearly 32 years old. You wouldn't know it. I mean, it's it's still really really good. I think did they have a fugitive too

US

Reegs: It's not the same character though, is it? I mean, it basically is the same character, but I don't, it's not,

Sidey: It is Tommy Lee Jones the same character.

Reegs: I don't, is he playing the same Gerard

Sidey: Yeah, and there's some of the same crew in it. I've not actually seen it, but I was reading about it today. This cost 44 million

Reegs: Oh, it's money well

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: do you reckon? Winner or

Dan: Oh, it definitely made, I would say,

Sidey: third biggest film of Night 3. It made 369 million. Which is decent.

Dan: I'd just be happy with 69.

Sidey: Yeah, it's brought me all. With Harrison Ford actually. This

Reegs: The conspiracy is more like a corruption

Sidey: It's not like the conspiracy is, is more like a corruption story as opposed to, it's not like government, you

Reegs: know?

Sidey: conspiracy that we would expect these days. It's just corruption, corporate sort of naughtiness.

Reegs: Big Pharma though.

Sidey: yeah, that's true.

Reegs: putting the fluoride in, or taking it out, maybe.

Dan: glad

Sidey: I'm glad they didn't do that thing with Julianne Moore because that wouldn't have worked at

Dan: And as you say, it was like a guy you wanted to get away, chased by a cop, you wanted to catch him. So it was it just kept that balance going the way through the film really well. Yep, strong recommend.

And I've made a quiz, which I'm going to put into the next podcast.

About the fugitive.

Reegs: next podcast is sort of about inventions.

Sidey: So we've got to wait two days now effectively to have that

Dan: quiz. You do. Yeah. in real time, it Strong recommend.