The Innocence Project… Harrison Ford And Tommy Lee Jones’ The Fugitive (1993)- A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, 1993

I have often noted in doing reviews of older movies that they can provide a glimpse in the mores, the ethos, the fads of their times. Usually that glimpse involves certain customs, or certain ways of life portrayed on the screen. As a rule though they generally, at least the films that I watch deal with the state of the art in crime detection, the detection of murder one, murder most foul, murder which as a capital crime in some states (and at the federal level) mean the death penalty. So I took the action thriller under review, The Fugitive, based on the long running television series starring David Jansen  which in turn was based on the murder conviction of Doctor Samuel Shepard back in the 1950s as such an example.

No way today, even give the liberal cinematic license allowed in action thrillers, or any film, that our protagonist, Doctor Richard Kimble played by the versatile action actor Harrison Ford find himself accused of the murder of his wife, played by Sela Ward. Or wrongly as it turned out convicted. No way either that with DNA sampling available and since the scenario of this film is set in Chicago with the Innocent Project started at nearby Northwestern University would Kimble be facing the big step-off, the sting of a lethal injection.

That is now though but we have to backtrack to the time of crime (or of the film) and realize that some pretty sloppy police work let our good Doctor through the cracks of the justice system. Let him face the big step-off just because the coppers would not believe his story about his wife Helen, played by Sela Ward, being brutally murdered by a one-armed intruder, a home invader with some dastardly purpose in mind. So Kimble was forced to take steps on his own, had to seek out the real killer and bring him to justice. That task was fortuitously aided by an attempted escape by a couple of prisoners going to the same place as Kimble and wouldn’t you know the an on-coming crashed into the bus and it flew over an embankment freeing our man to seek the righteous justice he deserves.

That search for the real killer might have been a somewhat interesting story but the action would have been minimal. The film then turned into an odd-ball “buddy” film as Marshal Earp, oops, Marshal Gerard, played by Tommy Lee Jones was determined to bring this hardened felon to justice or at least to the clink. The chase in on. And through the bulk of the film Kimble is one, maybe two, steps ahead of the vengeful marshal and his all-out massive posse of federal, state, local, and hell, county law enforcement agencies, leading him a merry chase down waterfalls, on the El, in and out of hospitals (which he worked to his advantage like a charm), hotels, rooming houses you name it. But our good doctor sought the murderer, that damn one-armed bandit, and what drove him to the heinous crime. You know in the end Kimble will be exonerated but it was a wild trip all the same. Still I am glad they have DNA testing at their fingertips today, very glad.