The Fugitive

The Fugitive is a 1993 action thriller that stars Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film is based off of the tv show of the same title and plotline from the 1960's
== Plot ==
Prominent Chicago vascular surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble arrives home to find his wife, Helen, fatally injured by a man with a prosthetic arm. Kimble struggles with the killer, who escapes. The lack of evidence of a forced entry, Helen's lucrative life insurance policy, and a misunderstood 911 call result in Kimble's wrongful arrest after the cops refuse to believe his story about the killer. He is then convicted of first-degree murder and receives a death sentence.
While being transported by bus to death row, Kimble's fellow prisoners attempt an escape. In the pandemonium, two prisoners and the driver are killed, sending the bus down a ravine and into the path of an oncoming train. Kimble saves a guard, escapes the collision, and flees as the train derails. Hours later, U.S. Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard and his colleagues Renfro, Biggs, Newman, and Poole arrive at the crash site and launch a massive manhunt. Kimble sneaks into a hospital, where he obtains clothes and alters his appearance. He then drives off in an ambulance and is nearly captured in a highway tunnel but slips down a storm drain. Gerard follows and corners Kimble at the edge of a spillover above a dam; Kimble proclaims his innocence and leaps into the water below and escapes.
Kimble returns to Chicago to hunt for the real murderer, acquiring some money from his friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Nichols. He rents a cheap apartment and assumes the identity of a janitor to infiltrate Cook County Hospital's prosthetic department, where he makes a list of names of male patients with prosthetic arms matching the killer's. While there, Kimble forges new medical orders for a young trauma patient who was misdiagnosed, saving his life. Kimble escapes after a suspicious doctor confronts him and alerts the police.
Speculating that Kimble has returned to Chicago to search for the one-armed man, Gerard spots Kimble at Chicago City Hall, who is there to investigate a jailed man on his list. Kimble barely escapes the ensuing chase and disappears into the St. Patrick's Day parade. Kimble later breaks into the residence of Fredrick Sykes; seeing a photo of Sykes, Kimble recognizes him as his wife's murderer. Sykes, a former police officer, handles security for Devlin-MacGregor, a pharmaceutical company that is releasing a new drug called Provasic. Kimble had previously analyzed the drug's test samples and discovered it caused liver damage, which should have prevented FDA approval.
Kimble deduces that Dr. Nichols, who led the drug's development and has just become a board member of Devlin-MacGregor, arranged a cover-up by falsifying the findings to get Provasic approved. Nichols arranged for Sykes to kill Kimble in a staged burglary, only for him to be surprised by Helen, killing her. He also presumably had him kill Dr. Alec Lentz, who also worked on the drug's development and discovered its potential damage. Kimble phones Gerard, who conducts his own investigation into Sykes and Nichols. Kimble then heads to a hotel conference where Nichols is presenting Provasic. Sykes is alerted that Kimble is in Chicago and arms himself to kill him. Sykes tracks down and attacks Kimble on an "L" train. In the struggle, Sykes fatally shoots a transit cop before Kimble subdues him and handcuffs him to a pole.
Unbeknownst to Kimble, the officer's death is assumed to be his fault, and the Chicago Police issue a shoot-to-kill order on him. At the conference, Kimble publicly confronts Nichols about the drug conspiracy and the murders, which results in a fight that spills on the roof. Gerard stops a police helicopter from sniping Kimble, while both men crash through a skylight onto a descending elevator. Nichols regains consciousness and attempts to escape through the laundry room, with Kimble following him. Gerard follows with Renfro and calls out to Kimble that he knows about the conspiracy and that Kimble is innocent. Nichols knocks out Renfro, takes his gun, and tries to shoot Gerard, but Kimble attacks Nichols from behind, saving Gerard's life.
Kimble surrenders to Gerard, while Sykes and Nichols are arrested. Kimble is escorted out through the hotel entrance as the press questions the police about the newly found suspects, indicating Kimble's innocence. In the back of a squad car, Gerard uncuffs Kimble and offers him an ice pack; the two men are driven away into the night, with Kimble’s exoneration assured.
== Cast ==
* Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble
* Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard
* Sela Ward as Helen Kimble
* Joe Pantoliano as Deputy U.S. Marshal Cosmo Renfro
* Andreas Katsulas as Fredrick Sykes
* Jeroen Krabbé as Dr. Charles Nichols
* Daniel Roebuck as Deputy U.S. Marshal Bobby Biggs
* Tom Wood as Deputy U.S. Marshal Noah Newman
* L. Scott Caldwell as Deputy U.S. Marshal Erin Poole
* Johnny Lee Davenport as Deputy U.S. Marshal Henry
* Julianne Moore as Dr. Anne Eastman
* Ron Dean as Detective Kelly
* Joseph Kosala as Detective Rosetti
* Jane Lynch as Dr. Kathy Wahlund
* Dick Cusack as Attorney Walter Gutherie
* Andy Romano as Judge Bennett
* Nick Searcy as Sheriff Rawlins
* Eddie Bo Smith as Copeland
* Neil Flynn as Transit Cop
* Richard Riehle as Old Guard
* Kirsten Nelson as Hospital Secretary
* David Darlow as Dr. Alec Lentz
* Frank Ray Perilli as Corrections Officer
* Lester Holt as Newscaster
== Production ==
=== Casting ===
Harrison Ford was not originally cast for the role of Dr. Richard Kimble. Instead, a number of actors were auditioned for the part, including Alec Baldwin, Nick Nolte, Kevin Costner, and Michael Douglas. Nolte in particular felt he was too old for the role (though he is only a year older than Ford). Although the role of Gerard went to Tommy Lee Jones, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight were both considered for the role. The character of Dr. Nichols was recast for Jeroen Krabbé after the original actor who landed the role, Richard Jordan, fell ill with a brain tumor. Jordan subsequently died three weeks after the film's release.
=== Filming ===
Filming began in February and wrapped in mid-May. Locations for the motion picture included Bryson City, North Carolina; Blount County, Tennessee; Chicago; and Dillsboro, North Carolina. Although almost half of the film is set in rural Illinois, a large portion of the principal filming was actually shot in Jackson County, North Carolina in the Great Smoky Mountains. The scene involving Kimble's prison transport bus and a freight train wreck was filmed along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad just outside Dillsboro, North Carolina. Riders on that excursion railroad can still see the wreckage on the way out of the Dillsboro depot. The train crash cost $1 million to film. A real train, with its engine removed, was used for the filming, which was done in a single take. The wreck took several weeks to plan, and several test runs with a boxcar and a log car were conducted before the night of filming came. Scenes in the hospital after Kimble initially escapes were filmed at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, North Carolina. Cheoah Dam in Deals Gap was the location of the scene in which Kimble jumps from the dam. Deals Gap is also a popular and internationally famous destination for motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts, as it is located along a stretch of two-lane road known since 1981 as "The Dragon" or the "Tail of the Dragon".
The rest of the film was shot in Chicago, Illinois, including some of the dam scenes, which were filmed in the remains of the Chicago freight tunnels. The city hall stair chase (where Kimble narrowly escapes being apprehended by Gerard) was indeed filmed in the corridors and lobby of Chicago City Hall. The character Sykes lived in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago. Harrison Ford uses the pay phone in the Pullman Pub, and then climbs a ladder and runs down the roofline of the historic rowhouses. According to Andrew Davis, it was Ford's idea to film in Chicago. "Originally I wasn't even going to try to come to Chicago. I thought that the weather would be too cold and difficult for shooting. But Harrison, having seen several of my prior films shot in Chicago, suggested doing it here." Ford would later explain, "I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Wisconsin, and came back to take summer jobs for three years. I felt this was the best possible option as a location...We could get the grittiness, we could get the flash of architecture, the charm of the lake. It has it all."
The chase scene during the St. Patrick's Day Parade was filmed during the actual parade held that year on Wednesday, March 17, 1993, with Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris briefly seen as actual participants. Besides The Fugitive, another feature film, Michael Apted's Blink, was filmed during the exact same parade. According to Charles Geocaris, then head of the Chicago Film Office, both productions approached the film office in February about filming during the parade. Location managers and production managers for both films worked out the logistics with parade organizers, but according to Geocaris, the two camera crews would still occasionally run into each other during their shoots. Complicating matters was the weather which was fairly cold at 21 degrees Fahrenheit (below freezing) along with a windchill factor of minus 6. Nevertheless, disruption was at a minimum, with Geocaris recalling that "people on the parade route were laughing as Tommy Lee Jones chased Harrison Ford...It was a fun thing for them."
Cinematographer Michael Chapman credits Davis for the film's distinctive use of Chicago, which drew much praise upon its release. "A lot of it really feels like Chicago, because it just has a native's eye to it. That's Andy's, not mine. He knew where to look." Chapman was actually hired a week into production after his predecessor was fired, and he claims he only took the job because the money was too good. Throughout the production, Chapman would go back and forth between documentary and theatrical methods, using handheld cameras and natural light for scenes like the first house raid and then adding unexpected light sources throughout the tunnel chase as the realistic absence of light was deemed unfeasible. Though his work was later recognized with an Academy Award nomination, Chapman said it was an unhappy experience as he never got along with Davis. "I said 'I hated being there' and 'I was the wrong guy' and cursed...but it all worked out, so you never know."
Much of the film was rewritten throughout production and typically on the day each scene was supposed to shoot. According to Davis, he never met with credited screenwriter David Twohy, whose main contribution was writing the train crash. Beyond that, Davis said "he wasn’t involved in anything we did. Jeb Stuart was there with us...basically responding to things we were coming up with all the time...Warner Bros. can’t talk about this because of the Writers Guild, but Tommy Lee Jones, myself, Harrison and other people who were close with us, especially coming up with the whole plot about the pharmaceuticals, they were uncredited writers." Jane Lynch, who was cast as Dr. Kathy Wahlund in one of her first film roles, recalled having that experience, with both Ford and herself working out new dialogue for their scene right before they filmed it as Ford "didn't like the scene as it was written."
Given Ford's limited window of availability, Davis had only ten weeks to edit, mix and finish the film between the last day of shooting and the day it opened in theaters. To meet their schedule, producer Peter MacGregor-Scott set up seven editing suites at Warner Hollywood Studios and had a team of editors cutting around the clock as they each worked on different scenes. Each editor would be recognized for their work on the film with an Academy Award nomination.
== Trivia ==
* After the filming wrapped, remains of the train wreck were left behind, even today it is a tourist attraction.
* An unofficial sequel called U.S. Marshals was released in 1998.
* This film is to date the only film based on a tv series to receive a Best Picture nomination.