Throwback Thursday: ‘The Fugitive’

One of the first things I recall about having seen ‘The Fugitive’ for the first time was how strange it was to see Harrison Ford with a full beard. Aside from that, he gave an incredible performance as a man who is mistakenly convicted of his wife’s murder. The film begins with all the facts and evidence literally piling up on Dr. Kimble (Ford) in such a way that any jury would likely convict him. Then again, that’s the advantage of being the audience in a movie. We were the only one’s who knew he was innocent, but we couldn’t prove it yet. Just like Dr. Kimble knew he wasn’t the killer, we knew, but we had to take this exciting and unfortunate journey right alongside Dr. Kimble in order to prove to the authorities that he was innocent.

After his sentencing, the transport bus carrying Dr. Kimble and others wrecks during a prisoner uprising and coincidentally rolls down hill right onto a railroad track with a train barreling towards them. In the frenzy that follows, Dr. Kimble escapes. Enter Tommy Lee Jones, aka Marshall Samuel Gerard, or the guy who is going to track down Dr. Kimble by whatever means necessary. Jones is awesome as the badass tough-guy he’d already become so well known for playing in earlier films. ‘The Fugitive’ came just one year after Jones made waves in the popular Steven Seagal actioner ‘Under Siege’ where he was the one playing the bad guy. Good or bad, Tommy Lee Jones playing the no-bullsh** tough-as-nails character always equals hard-hitting fun.

What we quickly learn about both characters is that they’re both incredibly intelligent and incredibly resourceful, but they do so from very different backgrounds. It helps being a doctor when you’re an injured fugitive on the run. Throughout the film, as the foot soldiers of law enforcement chase their tails, Dr. Kimble and Marshall Gerard are in a high-speed mental game of cat and mouse as their wits prove more crucial to the outcome than their physical speed or endurance . That’s not to say there isn’t real suspense and physical trials of will and determination, as within the first forty minutes, the story is already steamrolling towards it’s first climatic moment (of many to come) when Kimble and Gerard meet face to face for the first time. In a tense stare down on the edge of a drainage duct, Kimble and Gerard play a game of eyeball chicken before Kimble makes a daring escape in the form of a swan dive off the dam and into the reservoir below.

In a moment of nervous clarity, Dr. Kimble realizes that no one will ever believe he is innocent and no one will ever “give” him the opportunity to clear his name. He realizes that to prove his innocence, he will have to seize the opportunity for himself. At that moment on the dam, Dr. Kimble looks death in the face and determines it frightens him less than the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars with actual killers. At that moment, Dr. Kimble threw caution to the wind and was essentially reborn as a man focused on finding the truth and revealing it to his accusers while being pursued by Gerard and half the Illinois police force. All while being brilliantly assisted by the adrenalin-producing, emotion-evoking compositions of James Newton Howard.

‘The Fugitive’ raises some interesting points of discussion, the biggest and most obvious being the question of what lengths would you go to prove your innocence if wrongfully accused? We rarely consider this type of self-reflection, writing off the possibility of ever being in this sort of situation as virtually impossible. However, consider the fact that all it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the possibility becomes a bit less impossible. Consider this… “there have already been 238 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.”* Now consider how many more there may be who haven’t had the opportunity to test their DNA against their convictions.

Now, I’m not suggesting that our prisons are filled with wrongfully accused inmates, but they do exist. Even our own government admits there is a disturbing margin of error within our legal system, whereas the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “admits that statistically 8% to 12% of all state prisoners are either actually or factually innocent.”* One of the greatest achievements that a movie such as ‘The Fugitive’ can accomplish is to raise awareness of these scenarios and shed light on the inherent imperfections of our legal system. Acknowledging that no system is perfect, we must always pursue to make adjustments and corrections as to continually ensure that our means of protecting our citizens remains fair and just, both for the innocent and the accused.

I’ll end on this final note… place yourself in Dr. Kimble’s shoes for a moment. If you knew you were innocent, would you just accept that you are powerless and allow the imperfect legal system to imprison you for life, or even schedule your own death, or would you fight, not with violence, but with the legal system itself and every other resource available to you in an effort to clear your name, regardless of the outcome. For some in our country, this is the daily struggle they endure and they need the support of the free and the willing who believe in the possibility that they may have been wrongfully convicted. Wouldn’t you want the same done for you if the tables were turned against your favor?