Reasonably effective, if commercially unsuccessful, throwback to those politically paranoid early’70s thrillers sees Master Sargent Gene Hackman losing his ‘package,’ hard-ass army man Tommy Lee Jones, on his way back from Germany to a court-martial in Chicago. Only problem, Jones ain’t who he says he is, and the Men’s Room donnybrook that allows Jones to escape was carefully planned. Part of an elaborate conspiracy between right-wing Ruskie and Americanski officers to stop (at any cost!) the implementation of a post-Cold War anti-nuclear peace treaty. With an assassination to top things off. Got that? Neatly run about two-thirds of the way (script from non-prolific John Bishop; faceless direction by the highly prolific Andrew Davis*). Johanna Cassidy gets slim pickings as Hackman’s supportive ‘ex,’ but Dennis Franz brings welcome verisimilitude as a streetwise/helpful Chicago cop (the brief look at his family homelife the best things in here), and John Heard giving away whatever mystery there is as a chilly desk-jockey Colonel out to nail the field-savvy Hackman. But the fun abruptly stops in the middle of the third act when Hackman makes a lame escape and the film suddenly starts to cherry-pick story beats from THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE/’62 and THE DAY OF THE JACKAL/’73, films in an entirely different league than this workaday number.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Directors John McTiernan and this film’s Andrew Davis must have been short-listed on all the same ‘safe’ A-list Hollywood thrillers of the late-‘80s and ‘90s. Solid, if faceless professionals, McTiernan broke out on DIE HARD/’88’s; Davis on THE FUGITIVE/’93. Of the two, McTiernan perhaps with a bit more filmmaking personality, Davis with the longer run near the top. (Or do I have them reversed?)
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: CANDIDATE and JACKAL refer to the original films, not their unhappy remakes. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-manchurian-candidate-1962.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-of-jackal-1973.html
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