THE FUGITIVE (1993 FILM)

'''The Fugitive''' is a 1993 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning feature film, based on the television series ''The Fugitive'', which was subsequently based on Dark Passage a movie and novel of the same name. The film stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard. Jones won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. It also featured Andreas Katsulas as the one-armed man, Sela Ward as Kimble's wife, Jeroen Krabbé (who replaced Richard Jordan), Julianne Moore, and Joe Pantoliano. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, one of the few films associated with a television series to be so honored.

Contents

Plot

Reception

Filming

Spin-off film

Pop culture references

External links

Plot

Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is a successful Chicago based vascular surgeon who returns home from a party to find his wife (Sela Ward) dying following a brutal attack. He fights with a mysterious one-armed man, but he escapes. Despite his attempts to save her and his testimony about the one-armed man, Kimble is convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
While being transported to prison by bus, the bus crashes through a guardrail, rolls down a hill, and lands on a set of train tracks. Kimble manages to pull himself, another convict and a guard to safety before the train rams the bus. He is freed from his chains and flees the scene on foot. As a fugitive from justice, he becomes the quarry of Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), who leads a team of from the US Marshals Service. Fugitive Task Force.
Although wounded and on the run, Kimble is determined to prove his innocence. With the hunters never far behind, there are many close calls. Several times he is almost captured, mostly brought on by Kimble's instincts as a doctor. On one occasion, he escapes by leaping down the spillway of a dam into the river below.

Kimble returns to Chicago to search for the one-armed man who killed his wife. He also makes contact with many of his former friends and associates from the medical community, virtually all of whom have never believed him to be guilty and are more than willing to help him. He also meets his colleague Dr. Charles Nichols (Jeroen Krabbé), who gives Kimble money, becomes a contact for him, and offers to help in any way.
Kimble's innate intelligence keeps him one step ahead of Gerard who begins to have doubts as to Kimble's guilt.
The showdown occurs at a medical conference where Kimble finally confronts Nichols with evidence that an experimental drug was causing serious liver damage. Nichols, who is working with a large drug company, has faked test results and stands to benefit greatly if the drug is approved. As they fight, Chicago police are on their trail, believing that Kimble is a cop-killer; the police officer was in fact shot by the one-armed man. The US Marshals are determined to get there first.
As it turns out, Kimble saves Gerard's life by disabling Nichols before he can kill Gerard. Gerard calls off the police and explains that he now knows Kimble to be innocent.

Reception

''The Fugitive'' opened strongly in the United States box office, grossing $23,758,855 in its first weekend and holding the top spot for six weeks. It eventually went on to gross an estimated $183,875,760 in the US, and $353,900,000 worldwide. [1]
It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, of which it only won Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Tommy Lee Jones. The other Oscars it was nominated for were Best Picture; Best Cinematography; Sound Effects Editing; Film Editing; Original Music Score; and Sound. Jones also received numerous other awards for his role, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture.
It also received largely enthusiastic reviews from film critics. As of April 2007, it received a 92% score and has been certified "Fresh" on RottenTomatoes.com. Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, calling it "one of the year's best films." [2]
It was notable enough to inspire a parody film, ''Wrongfully Accused''.

Filming

Although almost half of the movie is set in rural Illinois, a large portion of the principal filming was actually shot in Jackson County, North Carolina in the Great Smoky Mountains. The famous scene involving Kimble's prison transport bus and a freight train wreck was filmed along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad just outside of Dillsboro, North Carolina. Riders on the excursion railroad can still see the wreckage on the way out of the Dillsboro depot. Scenes in a hospital after Kimble's escape were filmed at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, North Carolina.
The rest of the movie was filmed in Chicago, Illinois, including some of the dam scene, which were filmed in the remains of the Chicago Freight Tunnels (and also at Deals Gap, North Carolina)^[1]. The "one armed man" lived in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago (see Pullman, Chicago). Harrison Ford used the pay phone in the local bar (the Pullman Pub), at which point he climbs a ladder and runs down the roofline of the historic rowhomes towards the one armed man's house. There are several other scenes that show the rowhouses of the historic neighborhood George Pullman built in the 1870s for his factory workers. During the parade chase scene, then Illinois Attorney General, Roland W. Burris, is prominently shown as a participant in the parade.

Spin-off film

Jones returned as Gerard in a spin-off released in 1998, ''U.S. Marshals'', which also featured Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr. and Joe Pantoliano. While the second movie also features Gerard's team of marshals hunting down an escaped fugitive under a death sentence, it does not involve Kimble or the events of the first movie in any way.

Pop culture references

★ The movie ''Wrongfully Accused'' spoofs this movie.

★ In an episode of Crossing Jordan, Jordan stumbles across the "one armed man"'s body in her Boston morgue who a California Death Row inmate has claimed was responsible for a murder she was convicted of. The film "The Fugitive" was mentioned once by name and later referenced once.

★ In an episode of the American sitcom ''Scrubs'', the Janitor is pointed out to be a policeman that was shot near the end of ''The Fugitive''. Neil Flynn, the actor who plays the Janitor, actually did play that part.

★ In ''The Simpsons'' episode "Lisa's Rival", the dam scene is spoofed with Milhouse (whom Bart had previously got on 'America's Most Wanted') stands at the edge of the dam explaining that '(he) is innocent!' with an FBI agent (closely resembling Gerard) replying "I don't care!". He then proceeds to jump off the dam, just like Kimble, only he yells, "Ow! My glasses!". In another episode, Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two), Homer manages to escape custody when his paddy wagon is overturned by Chief Wiggum's attempt to get his drive-thru order, shortly before the wagon is hit by Jasper's car, in much the same way as the train crashes into Kimble's prisoner transport bus (Homer similarly has both his hands and feet shackled).

★ In the movie ''The Mask'', when Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) is being arrested in the park by Lt. Kellaway (Peter Riegert), he sarcastically tells the lieutenant "It wasn't me. It was the one-armed man."

★ In one episode of ''Johnny Bravo'' he is accused of stealing the cookies of a policewoman, but he claims it was a "two-armed man".

★ In the ''Drawn Together'' episode "The Lemon-AIDS Walk," Wooldoor Sockbat attempts to flee after stealing from a candy store, winding up at the top of a decorative waterfall in the mall. After Wooldoor protests that he didn't do anything, a disinterested security guard responds, "I don't care."

★ Devlin-Macgregor, the fictitious pharmaceutical company that Kimble was going to blow the whistle on, has also been featured on trial in the television series Boston Legal.

★ In the film ''Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'' there is an animal research facility named ''Provasic'' and a parody of the dam scene, involving Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly.

External links

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