Chicago Dog

At some point during my recent vacation to Chicago, I asked Amanda if she'd ever seen The Fugitive. I told her how it is such a great "Chicago movie." This is true. Chicago is famous for several reasons (in my mind), including, but not limited to: Al Capone, Michael Jordan, the most over-the-top hot dogs in the country (amazing, by the way), Roger Ebert, that dude that caught the foul ball at Wrigley, and this 1993 Harrison Ford movie. It has to my way of thinking become as iconic as any of those other people and events because, well, it is just plain and simple a truly entertaining movie.

The rundown: Harrison Ford plays a wealthy Chicago surgeon named Richard Kimball, who is wrongly accused and convicted of the brutal murder of his wife. He claims he fought off the "one-armed man" who really did it and then, in a stroke of action direction genius finds himself a fugitive before even getting to prison. He is now the target of the relentless, hard, and hard-working U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard (Best Supporting Actor Tommy Lee Jones). The plot of this movie is so good and so smooth I shall refrain from spoiling too much for those few of you hermits who never saw this flick.

Ford is great in this movie as the man on the run, with a mission, and nothing to lose. However, it is Tommy Lee Jones's performance as the Marshall that makes me love it so much. He plays the character perfectly--sort of sarcastic, charismatic, determined, in-charge, and somehow likable all at the same time. That is what I think sets this movie apart from many others. We actually like the hunter and the hunted equally. We want Gerard to get his man, and we want Kimball to be free at the same time. The little screen time the two leads have together is remarkable. In the well-known dam scene just before one of Kimball's ballsy escapes, he tells the Gerard, "I didn't kill my wife!" To give you an idea of the Marshal's personality, here is his reply: "I don't care!" This line, which I actually chuckle at every time, is great because of its truth and untruth at the same time. Truth: He doesn't care...at least not yet. Untruth: He really does care just not about Kimball's innocence. He simply wants to do his job and catch his man.

And he's obviously good at this job. The movie allows the audience to see not only the hunt for Kimball but strays away from that in one incredible scene of violence, which reinforces the grit of the Jones character. Another escapee is hunted down and instead of negotiating with the man, he just shoots him right out of the convicts grasp on a rookie officer. The rookie is shaken and afraid. Gerard tells him point blank, "I don't negotiate." We sense that this man is dogged, a bloodhound, in his pursuits and doesn't leave many cases cold. Thus, we root for him just as we're rooting for Kimball to clear his name.

Director Andrew Davis, a veteran of action movies, is the architect behind this hunt. And what I admire so much about him as a directer is how he makes this movie entertaining without ridiculous chase sequences and explosions. CGI? You will find none. Of course, in '93 there wasn't much in the way of quality CGI as we know it today, but I digress. The biggest special effect in The Fugitive is the escape scene with the prison bus and the derailed train. Davis and his crew literally derailed a train here...like for real. Eat your heart out Michael Bay. This movie is suspenseful and taut and enthralling for almost any age (I saw it in the theater at age 9 and loved every second even then). And I think Davis's direction plays a large part in that. The chases seem real, the characters seem real, and the plot is quite plausible. We glide along as part of the hunt and the mystery and feel right at home in its Chicago locations.

Famous chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that apart from New York, Chicago is America's only other true and great metropolis. Having visited both cities, I can agree. Chicago, in a way, is sort of the forgotten metropolis. It is a massive city, but one with that mid-western feel. The people there are just more real to me than New Yorkers. Chicago plays an integral role in The Fugitive becoming the backdrop for the Ford-Jones manhunt. At one point Kimball eludes his predator once again in the midst of a downtown St. Patrick's Day parade. Gerard and his team of Marshals are able to use the streets and the sounds of the city to locate their suspect at one point hearing the bells and stops of the "L" train. Furthermore, the "L" train also works in conjunction with the streets and buildings to create a dark and ominous tone in one key scene...foreshadowing a future, and unexpected, villain.

With The Fugitive, Harrison Ford continued his reign as the aging action star, a title he would keep for many years after this film. Andrew Davis, who has never made a movie as good as this one, continued making fairly well-received action movies. The City of Chicago has been a mainstay in the movie business with what that very famous Oscar-stealing musical (and all that jazz) and as the shooting location for Christopher Nolan's two great "Batman" films. And Tommy Lee Jones ended making a huge mark with this film by winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. That dog sure does hunt.  

The City of Angels

About halfway through my umpteenth viewing of Curtis Hanson's 1997 film L.A. Confidential, I turned to my girlfriend (her first viewing) and answered the question she'd asked of me about 10 minutes earlier:

Amanda: What do you love about this movie so much? 

Me: (10 minutes later) I think what's so great about this movie is that no matter how many times I watch it I can never remember what's going to happen next. 

The plot (or lack of plot) in L.A. Confidential is indeed what makes it great. It begins as a series of episodes involving three LA cops (circa 1953). They are the hardened tough guy Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe), the Hollywood smooth operator Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), and the self-reightous political player Lt. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce). And their stories don't really seem related at first. In fact, nothing seems to relate to anything in the first hour + of this movie. One thing leads to another then another then another and all seem to circle back to a millionaire investor and dealer in "smut" and hookers "cut to look like movie stars," Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn) and his involvement with a couple of ex-police officers and missing mafia drugs. There is, in the beginning, the incarceration of a mob boss and his missing heroin, the introduction of Patchett and his prized girl Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), who is a Veronica Lake look-alike, and a brutal bloodbath at the Nite Owl (a local diner) in which an ex-police officer and one of Patchett's girls are victims. 

The viewer is constantly guessing who-dun-it, but what has been done and why do we care? The answer to the first part of that question doesn't really matter. It's not who-dun-it we care about. It's the characters. We care because we are so seamlessly brought into this world that we glide along with these detectives through the glitz of '50s Los Angeles, eventually understanding that this is not a standard police procedural where the big bad man is finally unveiled.

Even though that is exactly what happens in the end, L.A. Confidential is quite the opposite of any standard formula, even for film noir. It gets into not only the time period (its look, its feel, its colors, its characters), but it gets into the minds of its three protagonists. Consider a shot near the beginning with the suspension of the Crowe character, Officer White. The Police Chief, when White refuses to testify against his parter, gives him the standard, "Your badge and gun, officer!" The look on the young officer's face (masterful acting by a young Crowe) is one of surprise, shock, anger, and confusion in one glance. Then consider two scenes later when his Captain, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), gives it back. Curtis Hanson is obviously great with actors. He seems, especially in this film, to find just the right reaction shots. His camera is filled with the great look of this period but also the internal motivations of three LA police officers. All of them at different ranks, following different leads from different crimes, and somehow bringing them all together as three men, who really just want to be, simply, good police officers. 

At one point, Exley (Pearce) tells Vincennes (Spacey) of why he became a cop, a story about the death of his father and revenge with proper justice. He then asks Vincennes, "Why did you become a cop?" To which Vincennes replies, "I don't know anymore." We sense here that these men have consciences and, ultimately, want to be honest policemen in a world of pure corruption. Furthermore, this is, in many ways, a film about an era in Los Angeles that represents the beginning of police and the media, when the gap between the everyman and the public eye was just starting to slightly close. Vincennes, whose favorite part of the job is being a consultant on TVs "Badge of Honor," represents this and Exley and White are brought into it as part of the game being played by Patchett, Lynn (the movie star hooker), the corrupt police force, and the gossip columnist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito).

All of the many tunnels of this labyrinth are eventually brought together with the big third act plot twist and a violent shootout, but this movie does not sell out like I make it sound. In fact, by the end, we have almost forgotten where we began only to finally remember that we started with three flawed protagonists, who have now become what they wanted by doing what they thought they never would. They have each taken on the worst (and best) in each other leaving the viewer to ponder about not only the masterful "plot" but the arc of their psyches, the warm L.A. nights, and the beautiful call girl who didn't need to be "cut" to look like Veronica Lake.