The Fugitive (St. Patty's Day Special) - When You Believes In What You Are Doing, Never Give Up.
Harrison Ford's turn as "Dr. Richard Kimble" imparts one of the most important and hardest life lessons to learn and practice.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I'm very fond of talking about the best Christmas movies of all time but I think today we need to take a minute to acknowledge one of the best St. Patrick's Day movies of all time. Yes, of course, I am talking about the 1991 Andrew Davis thriller starring Harrison Ford, "The Fugitive"
When I was a little boy, I used to have sleepovers at my Uncle Rick’s for special occasions. The first time I can remember one of these weekends I must've been eight or nine years old and it was St. Patrick’s Day.
I remember he picked me up at my grandfather’s furniture store in the Empire State Building and he took me to get green bagels. Nothing like kicking off St. Patrick's Day in New York City with green bagels!
After, he took me to the parade, and we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is one reason that I always think of St. Patrick’s Day so fondly. When I do, I also always remember “The Fugitive,” arguably the greatest St. Patrick’s Day movie ever made.
There are several things about The Fugitive that are worth noting beyond the incredible chase/escape scene that ends with Ford’s “Dr. Richard Kimble” giving Tommy Lee Jones’s “US Marshall Agent Gerard” the slip during Chicago’s St. Patty’s Day Parade…
There is the excellent writing by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy, the tension-filled pacing of the direction by Andrew Davis.
The incredible cast, featuring, of course, the incomparable Harrison Ford who at this point in his career had been in the zone for like a decade and a half. Just Steph Curry throwing up three-pointers from half-court, Star Wars. Swish. Indiana Jones Swish. Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Swish and swish. And in the middle of it all, he makes “The Fugitive.” Nothing but net. Iconic.
Harrison is joined briefly by Seal Ward, who plays his murdered wife. The movie also stars Tommy Lee Jones who got an Oscar nom for this movie, which propelled him to another level of stardom. He who would go on to star in the sequel with a once and future Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. In this movie, Tommy Lee is backed by the great Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, L. Scott Caldwell, and Tom Wood.
The cast also features a who’s who of Chicago actors. There is an interesting multiverse where the two detectives, played by the late great Joe Kosala and Ron Dean (who was still going strong in the Nolan Batman movies, also partially filmed in Chicago), two former cops turned actors later in their lives. Fun movie trivia fact, Joe Kosala and Ron Dean both show up in “Code of Silence” starring Chuck Norris and “Above the Law,” Steven Segal’s first movie, both of which were also directed by Andrew Davis. Curiously, if you watch “Code of Silence” and “Above the Law,” you will see that they are almost identical movies, save for the CIA subplot of “Law” the two movies share a startlingly similar DNA. Especially in the characters of the Chicago cops played by Joe Kosala and Ron Dean.
Also, showing up in the cast is a then-unknown Julianne Moore as an ER doctor who almost blows Kimble’s cover as a janitor and Jane Lynch as an amputee surgeon. The villains are both played gloriously over the top by Jeroen Krabbé as Dr. Charles Nichols and the late great character actor Andre Katsulas who plays “Sykes” the illusive one-armed man.
For a hilarious take on this movie and its villain “Dr. Nichols” you have to see John Mulaney’s hilarious joke.
But, let’s turn to the main Movie Life Lesson:
Never Trust The Pharmaceutical Companies.
Perhaps, instead of watching “Outbreak” and “Contagion” we would have all been better off watching “The Fugitive” as a reminder that Big Pharma and their bought-and-paid-for doctors will aways switch the samples (or say, lie about the origin of a global pandemic and the worthless vaccines they peddled to the public and profited off of…hi Dr. Fowchee and Pfizer!). But I digress.
But seriously, what is the real Movie Life Lesson of “The Fugitive”? It’s this…
When You Are The Only Person Who Believes In What You Are Doing, Never Give Up.
Never quit. Never stop running, working, planning, learning, and succeeding at whatever is most important to you. In the end, all your hard work, effort, and unwavering belief will be vindicated when you accomplish that which you set out to accomplish.
Sometimes, it might seem impossible. You won’t think you can make it. Like a leap from the Cheoah Dam’s outflow pipe into a cascading waterfall of raw sewage and floating downriver to avoid being sent up river, at times it seems impossible. And like so many people you encounter along the way, they won’t want to hear what you have to say,
(Richard Kimble: “I didn’t kill my wife”
US Marshall Gerard: I don’t care.”)
People might misinterpret your actions like Chicago detectives on a murder investigation, and they might even lie, cheat, cut corners, or try to kill you, to stop you from achieving what you set out to do.
The way to beat them is to Never Quit.
Not ever.
And, if you don’t, then in your own life you’ll end up as successful and iconic as Harrison Ford.
Here endeth the lesson.