Why The Fugitive Is A Perfect Movie
Hi, I’m Alex, welcome to my TedTalk.
What Is The Fugitive?
The Fugitive is the greatest chase movie of all time. It’s movie that makes me glad I don’t have cable anymore since I have to watch it any time it is playing, which is most weekends and holidays if my memory of 1995 onward is to be believed. Picture a 90s thriller adaptation of Les Mis starring Harrison Ford as Valjean and Tommy Lee Jones as Javert and you’ve got a loose idea of what it’s all about.
The Action is Good Shit™
Hey, you know what’s great fun to see in a movie? Chases. Near-misses. People surviving improbable jumps off of high structures. TRAINS FUCKING DERAILING. They DERAILED A TRAIN FOR THIS MOVIE. No confusing cuts or shaky-cam, no CGI monstrosities barreling towards camera, just a straightforward, ass-kicking train crash that you can sit and enjoy on your couch while yelling at Harrison Ford to get out of the way.
The Soundtrack Fucking Rules
Imagine all the propulsion of Hitchcock violins and cellos mixed with pure-cut 90s piano and those weird Stomp drum/trashcan sounds that were so ubiquitous, and you have the soundtrack to The Fugitive. At turns propulsive and full of dread and sadness, James Newton Howard makes running through a tunnel or down a staircase as thrilling and high-stakes as a shootout or a car chase.
Iconique Dialogue
“There is a line in a movie which I wish I had written. It occurs in The Fugitive with
Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. You probably know the story:
Harrison Ford is suspected of murdering his wife, he’s on the run, and a
cop – Tommy Lee Jones – is trying to track him down. And of course,
Harrison Ford is innocent. And at one point he gets cornered, he doesn’t
know where to go and he turns around to this policeman – Tommy Lee
Jones – and Ford says “I didn’t kill my wife!” and Jones says “I don’t
care!” That was a line that I would have liked to have written.” -frickin’ TOM STOPPARD
[Acting.gif]™️
Y’all, this is the chase movie that got Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar. He’s got it going on in this movie: I’m not sure if this is where he started doing the laconic, driven lawman thing or merely the movie in which he perfected it, but whichever way it is he’s the Platonic ideal of the unstoppable bloodhound of The Law who is slightly more human than he lets on. Also wears a great sweater vest and has the best lines in the movie.
So now that we’ve gotten the most famous performance in the movie out of the way, let’s talk about Harrison Ford also killing it* in this movie. Ford’s got the tricky task of playing a protagonist who is not only driven and heroic, but also terrified. We as the audience already know he can sell the confident, righteous “I didn’t kill my wife!” “You switched the samples!” stuff and we already believe that he’s going to be able to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, but can he make us believe in him as a hunted, frightened man in way over his head?
The answer, my lovelies, is that yes, he absolutely can. When Kimble isn’t risking his freedom to save injured children or scattering his fingerprints like so many bread crumbs he’s a shaky, limping mess: Ford really nails the kind of fear that makes your limbs shake and your teeth chatter, and he makes the audience believe that every step in his journey is a hard-won.
Everyone You Love Is In It
Jane Lynch! Julianne Moore! Sela Ward!
Janitor!
Tommy Lee Jones murders Art from Justified with his eyes!
Only 90s Rust Belt Kids Remember
The last thing that makes it perfect, to me, is that it’s such a Chicago movie. I didn’t grow up in Chicago but I was born and raised in the same Rust Belt, Great Lakes corridor, and that gray, slushy, snowy March vibe is a balm unto my spirit. The accents make me homesick: the vaguely southern drawls intermixed with those flat, flat As, the endless “where you at?”s, all of it. The overhead shots of the city are gorgeous, imposing; a setpiece in the film involves the actual St. Patrick’s Day parade held in Chicago, complete with green river.
A plot point involves the specific sound of the El. It’s an embrace of an oft-maligned region through the simple act of letting it be its own setting. The characters are in and from Chicago, so is the director and many of the actors. It’s not a Chicago-for-New-York shoot, it’s a movie so specifically located that John Mulaney could use it in a stand-up special decades later.
In conclusion, stop reading this dumb post and go watch The Fugitive.
*HE DIDN’T KILL HIS WIFE!! (Richard Kimble doesn’t kill *anyone*: not his wife, not his wife’s murderer, not anyone trying to kill him.)