Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #24 - The Fugitive

"I didn't kill my wife!"
"I don't care!"

The 1993 film adaptation of the 60's TV series about Dr. Richard Kimble, the man wrongly convicted of killing his wife and sentenced to death, who then escapes custody to prove his innocence.

Richard Kimble, played by Harrison Ford, comes home one night from an emergency surgery to find his wife has been brutally attacked by a one-armed man with a gun. Kimble fights with the man but he escapes. Kimble is then arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. Due to the lack of evidence to prove the one-armed man's existence, let alone involvement, Kimble is sentenced to death at the Illinois Department of Corrections. During their transfer for incarceration, the other inmates on the bus stage a breakout attempt and kill the bus driver by having one of the prisoners swallow a pill that makes his mouth foam. In the ensuing struggle with the the guards, the bus tumbles off the road and onto a train track, where it's destroyed by a train with Kimble barely making it out. Kimble gets the guard key from another inmate and unlocks his shackles. Once on foot, he begins his escapade as a fugitive of the law.

Arriving on the scene hot on his tracks is Federal Marshall Samuel Gerard, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jones and his cohorts begin an all-out war sort-of investigation to find Kimble and bring him to justice. The rest of the movie is Kimble using his prevailing medical knowledge and investigative work to learn the truth behind his wife's murder, with Gerard and his fellow marshals following his every move. Soon, Kimble learns the real name of the one-armed man that killed his wife and moves to intercept him. However, he discovers more to the scheme than initially believed, that his wife was murdered in place of him when his good friend and colleague Dr. Charles Nichols learned that Kimble found out that an experiment drug he was pushing through for approval by the FDA was causing liver damage in its tests. Nichols decided to silence Kimble by hiring the one-armed man to kill him, but Kimble's wife was at home instead and got caught in the crossfire.

The movie ends with Kimble confronting Nichols at a Devlin-McGregor conference to promote the experimental drug "Provasic". Kimble and Nichols fight in the hotel and on the roof, leading back down to the laundry rooms in the basement. Gerard and his fellow marshal, Cosmo, confront the two of them in the basement. Gerard explains that he knows all about Frederick Sykes, the one-armed man, and he knows of Richard's innocence. Nichols is knocked out and taken into custody. Gerard lets Kimble ride in his car and unlocks his handcuffs as they leave the scene together.

The Fugitive is an adrenaline-pumping drama film that sees the wrongly convicted man prove his innocence against the world that doesn't believe him. His lawyer even advises that he turn himself in so that he can simply go back to jail quietly. Richard instead evades Gerard time and time again until his mission is complete. By the end, Gerard agrees that Kimble is innocent and moves to charge Nichols and Sykes with their crimes instead. Truly feelgood ending that sees Richard succeed in his mission and is permitted to return to his former life. Love this movie. Excellent story and well-acted throughout. Give it a watch if you haven't seen it. Ford and Jones kick ass in their roles and the movie is a fun two hour thrill ride of mystery, deceit, and redemption.