The Fugitive

00:36:24 [SPEAKER_03]: Pedantry must be so slow paced if they're meant to get this whole story crossing like the two hours to have like a TV show that Would seem to be never ending. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's a procedure. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's just he gets in an adventure each week while being on the run. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was basically, so the incredible Hulk TV show, it was like that without a big green man who would use to smash things. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, like Quantum Leap, who's trying to get home, but also doing stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: He's helping people each week, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, trying to chase down the one-armed man. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not convinced by that. [SPEAKER_02]: If you're going to watch related stuff, I'd probably pick that over US Marshals. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: So 5.0 for you, Chris James. [SPEAKER_02]: I'd give it five as well, without a shadow of a doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely a five. [SPEAKER_01]: I love this film so much. [SPEAKER_01]: I just think it's great. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can kind of forgive some of the slightly weaker special effects just for, you know, everything else that's going on. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, a five, it's for everyone. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think I was being a bit tough on the special effects side of things, but I think I'm going to give it a five as well. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just such an interesting film and there's tension in the bits where he's like, pretends to be a janitor, closes the windows down so he can pretend to be cleaning the blinds. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, whilst checking out what does, you know, how many of our men are there in Chicago?

[SPEAKER_03]: Initially, I thought, oh, 35. [SPEAKER_03]: That's actually a decent number to start off with, but he wasn't happy with that. [SPEAKER_02]: No, he has to whip it down further. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lazy fucker.

00:38:02 [SPEAKER_01]: He's, so when he's ringing up people to find out where they are as well, I always enjoy that scene. [SPEAKER_02]: You're like, oh yes, this is pre-internet. [SPEAKER_02]: I'd forgotten about this. [SPEAKER_02]: You can't Google something. [SPEAKER_02]: You've got to call everyone. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's quite a funny bit where he goes, oh yeah, really, armed robbery. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a bit of a wink, wink moment, you know? [SPEAKER_00]: He's a one-armed man. [SPEAKER_00]: He's just committed armed robbery. [SPEAKER_00]: Nice one. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, go to the prison. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh no, you're black. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, see you later.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, I'm massively racist. [SPEAKER_03]: I have to repeat the score. [SPEAKER_03]: Chris. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, come on. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, come on. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a five. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a five. [SPEAKER_00]: James. [SPEAKER_02]: It is sadly also a five for this one. [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen this many, many times and I'm sure I've seen many, many more times. [SPEAKER_02]: Helen. [SPEAKER_01]: A five for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it came onto Netflix sort of towards the end of last year. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Because I saw that it popped on and I was like, oh, time to sit down and enjoy this. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And when you suggested it, Chris, I was really looking forward to watching it again. [SPEAKER_01]: So five.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to have to go for a slight lesson, you guys. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to go for 4.5. [SPEAKER_03]: I've literally no idea why I didn't watch it. [SPEAKER_03]: I haven't watched it again. [SPEAKER_03]: It just probably didn't become part of the circulation of DVDs I had at the time, or VHS at the time, and I didn't record it on the TV. [SPEAKER_03]: So this literally is the second time, which is a bit of a travesty, because it is a great film. [SPEAKER_03]: But I will endeavor to watch it as many times as possible going forward, I think. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a good film, but I just don't like fugitives, if I'm honest with you. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, for that reason, I'm going to give it a 1.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the small screen score, Chris? [SPEAKER_00]: This is tricky. [SPEAKER_00]: This is tricky, because I don't think it's a film that lives and dies by its visuals. [SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, it has two pretty major stunt sequences. [SPEAKER_00]: And also, I don't want to just randomly, blindly give it five stars in every category. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to give it four, because it's a film about performances and character and dialogue, ultimately. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think you can enjoy that on your watch. [SPEAKER_00]: Never mind your phone.

00:40:25 [SPEAKER_02]: James I am going to give it a three for this for simple reason that I actually think it benefits from being seen on film and not digitally and certainly on a 4k TV like this has not been upscaled at all it's not been remastered I mean it looks properly wobbly and as as Chris alluded to earlier like the the mechanics of how they did the crash sequence in certain angles [SPEAKER_02]: It does not look great on a 4K TV. [SPEAKER_02]: I would ideally watch this on actual film in a cinema. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it would look a lot better that way. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, whenever cinemas happen again, maybe Prince Charles will open up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe we can all applaud the train crash sequence when it happens. [SPEAKER_00]: We can all applaud him jumping off the dam. [SPEAKER_00]: We can all applaud him making a phone call and just anything he does will applaud. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the kind of thing that you would get at Prince Charles that people would stand up and cheer that. [SPEAKER_03]: But both kind of things happening. [SPEAKER_03]: Where in Canada was it? [SPEAKER_03]: Because I always had Canada as a mild-mannered nation. [SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't believe it. [SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't believe it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd seen a whole bunch of films because I was there for five weeks that summer and I saw a whole bunch of films, including Another Stakeout and Robin Hood, Men and Tights. [SPEAKER_00]: None of them garnered the same reaction.

[SPEAKER_03]: None of them. [SPEAKER_03]: Is that because they're poor films? [SPEAKER_00]: That's not for me to say, Copey, is it?

[SPEAKER_03]: Helen, sorry, your small screen's cool. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I've never seen this on the big screen. [SPEAKER_01]: I've only ever seen it on various different size TVs. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I don't know, because I'm so used to it, I've got nothing else to compare it to. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's perfectly fine for me. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to go for a five.

00:42:02 [SPEAKER_03]: OK. Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: When I remember seeing this at the cinema, [SPEAKER_03]: Again, this is a weird thing. [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen where he cuts his beard off. [SPEAKER_03]: I was really fixated about that. [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, you have to use scissors first before you can shave. [SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: The stunt scenes don't really matter that much. [SPEAKER_03]: And even though what's kind of gutted, I was like, ah, given the way the key bits as a 13 year old, it is about explosions and guns and stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: But they're really not the thrust of this film. [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think they stand up now. [SPEAKER_03]: So I think seeing on a TV size screen is absolutely perfect for this. [SPEAKER_03]: I might try and listen for the score again, but I don't. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think there's much to be taken away from seeing it on a big screen. [SPEAKER_03]: So I will join Helen under 5 here. [SPEAKER_03]: It's looking very high. [SPEAKER_03]: This is typically where a big film falls apart is the small screen score.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I have quite high hopes for this one. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's see. [SPEAKER_03]: Engagement score, Chris.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, remind me again, but again some stories. [SPEAKER_03]: So this is, this is like, once you've got it, once you press play, how engaged are you? [SPEAKER_03]: Are you, are you going on Twitter? [SPEAKER_03]: Are you, are you being, are you stopping and making that? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Um, okay. [SPEAKER_03]: So, uh,

00:43:18 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna have to give this a five, guys. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the film that once you're in, you're in for the duration. [SPEAKER_00]: I am an Confederate tweeter, and yet yesterday I absolutely did not tweet at all whilst watching this movie again. [SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of wanted to because I'm a really great film writer, Priscilla Page, who writes for Empire, amongst other outlets, tweeted about this movie recently and wrote a lovely article about it on her Patreon as well. [SPEAKER_00]: And she's just really, really great and really nails a lot of great stuff about the movie. [SPEAKER_00]: And that had put me in mind of it again. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd already recommended it for this. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd already chosen it. [SPEAKER_00]: But there's just something in the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's something in the ether about the fugitive at the moment. [SPEAKER_00]: And she pointed out the beard. [SPEAKER_00]: The beard is really interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: The idea that the world's biggest movie star starts a film not looking like the world's biggest movie star. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, he does kind of rock the beard, it has to be said. [SPEAKER_00]: But the masterstroke is that at some point during the movie, he has to shave it off and then become, ta-da, Harrison Ford. [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that some people were sharing stuff on Twitter the other day of the scene where he has to kind of bandage himself up in the hospital. [SPEAKER_00]: And he was 50, maybe 51 when he made this movie and he's in good shape.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just put it that way. [SPEAKER_00]: That's true. [SPEAKER_03]: He's in good shape. [SPEAKER_03]: James. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what would I give it for you? [SPEAKER_02]: I think he's right. [SPEAKER_02]: I think I think this is like I'm have a tendency to do other things often when I'm watching things on my phone. [SPEAKER_02]: I did not pick up my phone once for watching this. [SPEAKER_02]: I enjoyed every minute of it. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'd probably give this a five as well. [SPEAKER_03]: Helen. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's another five. [SPEAKER_01]: This is just one film that, even though I've seen it so many times, that I am quite happy to give, what is it, two hours ten of my full attention? [SPEAKER_01]: I just love it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I even thought, you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: I will wait until after it's finished to do my usual poking around on the internet for fun facts and stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: What kind of poking around were you looking forward to doing on this rewatch? [SPEAKER_01]: But because I'd seen some of the tweets about the script so it was interesting saying about Julianne Moore because apparently she was a possible love interest and I think they maybe even got to the point where they shot some scenes with her where he kind of goes back to the hospital and their relationship becomes something a little bit more which is why she ended up higher billing on the top on that so there's loads of things like that and I was really intrigued about the kind of [SPEAKER_01]: improvisation stuff that went on.

00:45:50 [SPEAKER_03]: That kind of makes sense and it is one of the things that guts me most about like Ghostbusters is that Ernie Hudson signed on and he had like a one of the best kind of storylines all the way through and then when he turned up like day one of shooting is like oh I've come in like [SPEAKER_03]: More over halfway to the film and I'm not I'm not a fighter pilot anymore and so but then obviously you your agent doesn't go to northern negotiating for you. [SPEAKER_03]: So he's probably still got the same amount of money, but it didn't get the same kind of Featuring so that's probably what's happened with you there more I can see him being his is love interest even though Muslim a fair bit of age difference between them

[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: I actually had heard that before. [SPEAKER_00]: I had read that somewhere before that, you know, she had a bigger role at one point as well. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's, yeah, thank you for jogging my memory there because it is interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: You get a sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I say, the end of the movie feels a bit like studio mandated reshoots. [SPEAKER_00]: So if we could put some action in here, there's a moment where, where Kimball is breaking into the one armed man's house. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a really weird sequence before that where he steps out of a cafe. [SPEAKER_00]: and he looks across the road and he and we the audience see what appears to be Gerard's men and the shit cop Rosetti kind of staking out the place so he kind of he skirts around them gives him the old swerve breaks at the one art man's house then calls up Gerard on the phone and suddenly all those guys are back at the HQ

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it feels like maybe there was a little bit of surgery done in and around the edges of the film, which, you know, doesn't seem to have affected the movie in terms of its ability to, you know, to please crowds or to tell a coherent story. [SPEAKER_00]: But I do wonder sometimes what this movie might have been. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting, just one last thing I'll make one last point. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was directed by Andrew Davis, who for my money is the absolute epitome of a Hollywood journeyman. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's [SPEAKER_00]: nothing in his career that even remotely comes close to this movie before or since. [SPEAKER_00]: So before this, he directed things like The Package with Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones.

[SPEAKER_00]: He directed Under Siege, which is a passable Steven Seagal action movie. [SPEAKER_00]: Then after it, he directed Jane Reaction, the dreadful Keanu Reeves thriller. [SPEAKER_00]: Collateral damage on Arnold Schwarzenegger's worst movies. [SPEAKER_00]: And he hasn't made a movie since 2006, which was The Guardian, that Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher movie. [SPEAKER_00]: Sounds right. [SPEAKER_00]: So something happened in this movie, something that was like a perfect marriage of, I don't know, maybe because it was a hometown, maybe it was just, you know, it was a fairly unambitious script. [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it needed a director who could just play it straight and straight down the middle. [SPEAKER_00]: But for some reason it worked and he struck lightning with this, but nothing before or after it comes even close to it.

00:48:40 [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe the six editors managed to eke out the best performance out of everyone and the actors just kind of said, we're just going to take over. [SPEAKER_01]: The improvisation just shone through. [SPEAKER_01]: They just went, ah, let's not bother with the script. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll just improvise most of it. [SPEAKER_01]: It'll be fine. [SPEAKER_03]: Because I audibly, I was watching this by myself and when he said, I didn't kill my wife and Tommy Jones says, I don't care, I just go forward. [SPEAKER_03]: I just thought that's such, that's the perfect line. [SPEAKER_03]: He's doing his job and he's doing it well. [SPEAKER_03]: And ultimately he's like, you know, I'm just here to chase you because you're an escaped convict mate. [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I'm going to try and catch him, going to do the best of my abilities.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's an astute of like, [SPEAKER_03]: Everyone ever just wrote some off. [SPEAKER_03]: No, it's jumped off. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just it's jumped off the dam. [SPEAKER_03]: He's dead. [SPEAKER_03]: Don't worry about him. [SPEAKER_03]: So let's just let's just wait and see properly because he's already escaped death with a train. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's just See if this guy does surface again. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course he does do and it's I think it's really cool and although to your point just then well after he jumped off the of the of the dam if he hadn't called this lawyer he probably could have got away with everything and they never would have seen him again because they just assumed he was there Idiot true

[SPEAKER_03]: I do question that point about what he wants his lawyer to do, exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not an illegal professional in any way, I don't know what. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: He wants him to wire him some money, didn't he? [SPEAKER_03]: Which is, I don't think it's well thought out. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: There's also, there's also a certain, you know, you could ask questions about where he gets the money to pay for the, the flat that he moves into. [SPEAKER_00]: We never see the, we never see him returning to that after Gerard and his men, you know, arrest that skeevy fella and, and presumably, you know, move into the place. [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't really see where he gets all the clothes from either. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's, there's various questions that you could ask about this movie.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or the hair dye. [SPEAKER_00]: She suddenly washes out at one point as well. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you were to ask such questions in the film it began to unravel and we do not want to do that. [SPEAKER_03]: So that means, yeah, I'm gonna go for five as well, if I engage in a score. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe because I simply haven't seen it and I couldn't remember the storyline, but I think I'll be tied in there from the start and just to reiterate the fact that those two keystones happen so we're done in the film, but you're still tied into it. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, it's testing how good it really is, even if those are slightly ropey. [SPEAKER_03]: And that gives us an overall score of 4.78125.

00:51:04 [SPEAKER_03]: And guys, if you're listening, if you go to...

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my God. [SPEAKER_03]: Right, so if you go to our website, flitswatcher.tv, you can see all of the films that we have here and arranged them by overall score. [SPEAKER_03]: And this actually, guys, is joint number one with When I Was Selling. [SPEAKER_03]: That is astonishing. [SPEAKER_01]: Big news for the scoreboard. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: When Samuel chased Richard, I'm all for that. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so number one, joint number one, when Hermes Ali and The Fugitive, as you hear this, number two to all the boys I've loved before, which is a good, I don't know how it got so high, maybe because the small screen score isn't that much of a thing. [SPEAKER_03]: Then what we do in the shadows and then sounds the lamb.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's in great company there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Better than all of them put together, if you ask me. [SPEAKER_00]: But I may be biased. [SPEAKER_00]: But the last thing I'm going to say about this movie, going back to the Neil Flynn thing on Scrubs, which is very, very funny if you check it out. [SPEAKER_00]: So all the way through Scrubs, that character is called the janitor. [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know his name. [SPEAKER_00]: And he's only known as a janitor. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the very last episode, he told JD his name. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think he's lying because if the gen