The Fugitive (4K Ultra HD)

This movie has fantastic actors. They are all the best at the time the movie was made. Had us on the edge of our seats. Excellent movie.

This is a classic cinema masterpiece. Rewatchable. Perfection.

There is a kind of magic when a superb cast, a truly gifted director, and a literate script with equal parts 'over-the-top' action, riveting suspense, and rich characterization, come together. The end result attains a luster that only grows through the years, as new audiences, through DVD and VHS, experience the same excitement we felt, viewing it on a theater screen. In the last decade, only a handful of suspense films could be called 'great'...and on top of the list is THE FUGITIVE. Based on the popular David Janssen TV series, the film faithfully follows the same premise; a doctor is convicted of his wife's death, but escapes before his execution, and tracks down the 'one-armed man' responsible for the murder, as a driven law officer attempts to recapture him. Being a big-budget film, however, the scale of everything is expanded...Dr. Richard Kimble is now a brilliant vascular surgeon, at a major Chicago hospital; the handicapped killer is a dirty ex-cop working on orders from crooked board members of a billion-dollar pharmaceutical firm; and the lawman is no longer a solitary police lieutenant, but a deputy United States Marshal, and his team of agents! While some fans of the original series complained that the 'intimacy' the series had was lost, director Andrew Davis only used the 'bigger' aspects as plot elements, placing the focus, wisely, on the dual stories of Kimble's search, and Gerard's pursuit. Despite the esteem the film has achieved over the years, Harrison Ford has gotten a bad rap for his very understated performance as Richard Kimble. While Tommy Lee Jones certainly had a far flashier role (earning him an Oscar as 'Best Supporting Actor'), Ford's intent wasn't to play 'Indiana Jones', but a man whose whole life was dedicated to his career as a surgeon, and his wife (played, in flashbacks, by the lovely Sela Ward). Seeing his wife brutally murdered devastated him (his scene in the police interrogation room, going to pieces, was largely improvised on the set, and displays some of his finest acting). His search for the killer was not the confident quest of an action hero, but based on uncertain, spur-of-the-moment decisions made by a desperate man, whose medical background was his only tool. Fear does not lend itself to flashy theatrics... Jones, as Marshal Sam Gerard, on the other hand, was a seasoned veteran, the best at what he did, and pursuing a fugitive was 'old hat' for him. With a confidence bordering on arrogance, he ordered people about like chess pieces, multi-tasked without breaking a sweat, and still could charm with a wicked smile and sarcastic remark. Of COURSE he wins the audience's heart! Featuring some of the most spectacular action scenes ever recorded on film (the train/bus wreck that frees Kimble, the dive off a dam into the churning maelstrom of the reservoir), as well as two slam-bang fistfights when Kimble finally gets 'justice', THE FUGITIVE still is remembered primarily for the suspenseful Jones/Ford 'cat-and-mouse' chase, cross-country, and the grudging respect that grows between them...which, ultimately, was what the TV series was best remembered for, as well. There is magic, here!

Great movie.

Great movie but Amazon ships it in a plastic bag for some reason. The Blu-ray case was smashed but thankfully the disc was ok.

One of Harrison Fords best performances.

UPDATED: Now that the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray is available, I can finally give this 5 stars. Unfortunately Amazon lumps reviews for all editions together. Don't buy the old black-cover Blu-ray, the transfer on that disc was shameful. The 20th Anniversary white-cover version has a gorgeous new transfer of this classic film in true 1080p, with crisp DTS-HD Master Audio. It looks like it's had some image stabilization applied to compensate for gate weave in the film, and it's had a little bit of grain reduction applied, but both effects are tastefully done and not over-the-top. The disc also comes with a nice assortment of special features, and the typical price here on Amazon is a steal for a great film well-presented. I recommend it unreservedly. The review for the original, inferior disc is preserved below for contrast & historical accuracy. ========================================= The two stars are for the Blu-ray, not the film itself, which I love and would happily give 5 stars. Other Blu-ray reviewers have referred to a "soft" picture. Actually it is literally *pixelated*. If you take a close look at high-contrast edges, like the names of the actors during the opening title sequence, you can plainly see big blocky pixels that are far too large for 1080p. Based on that, and some occasional frame-blending artifacts, it is clear that the source transfer for this disc was a standard-def telecine (60i) like what would be broadcast on cable networks. The authors of this disc took that old SD master and did an inverse telecine pass to remove the pulldown/interlacing and get a 24p SD master. (Unfortunately there were a few errors at edit points, causing the aforementioned frame-blending.) Then it was upscaled to 1080p, but they didn't even do an interpolation algorithm, it's just nearest-neighbor pixel doubling. Yuck! I will give it an extra star because (1) it's usually very cheap and (2) it's way better than the DVD. There are none of the old compression artifacts or edge enhancement here. But for a Blu-ray, it's very disappointing. It's barely worth the 8 bucks I spent on it. Also I have to disagree with those who complained about the black levels. The contrast is fine, it's just that the film itself seems to have been shot in a run-and-gun medium-budget style that did not emphasize rich cinematography. There might be a little bit more range to eke out color-wise from the original film negative, if WB will ever break out the wallet and pay for a new transfer, but I'm betting there isn't much more depth to be had.

We are Tommy Lee Jones fans so the movie is great, but it arrived in perfect condition and

Uno spettacolo di film da aggiungere alla vostra collezione. Cast eccezionale e davvero bello, dalla trama all'ambientazione, agli effetti e alle musiche. Davvero un film che merita di essere visto e rivisto. L'alta definizione ci sta tutta, anche se non si possono pretendere miracoli visto che è un film che ha anni e anni.

Conforme

This is a great movie keeps you guessing until the very end. Harrison Ford is brilliant. One of my favourites

Awesome movie Harrison Ford is a great actor

古い映画ですがテンポがよく飽きさせない魅力がある。各所に作製者のこだわりを感じる。