Renewing An Old Duel

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

TITLE: THE FUGITIVE

DIRECTOR: ANDREW DAVIS

WRITERS: JEB STUART AND DAVID TWOHY

THE BOTTOM LINE: Reimagined instead of recycled, an adaptation of a '60s old TV show emerges as a first-rate thriller.

A smart federal law-enforcement officer, his wit informed by years of experience and buttressed by all the latest crime-fighting technology; a cunning, daring criminal managing always to stay just an infuriating half step ahead of his pursuer; a final confrontation that begins at a large, celebratory public occasion, proceeds to vertiginous grapplings along the edge of a big-city high-rise and ends with justice done by the narrowest, scariest of margins.

Old news, you say. You've already seen and loved In the Line of Fire. Well, here comes another movie that deploys similar elements, including deeply satisfying star performances and high-energy directorial craftsmanship. The difference between them arises from a couple of simple role reversals. In The Fugitive the criminal is actually an innocent man: Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), a surgeon falsely accused of murdering his wife. The lawman -- a U.S. marshal named Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) -- is the character in the grips of a dangerous obsession, namely to capture the eponymous escapee.

The best measure of this movie's merits is that the cross-reference that springs most readily to mind is another well-made current movie. But everyone knows The Fugitive derives its title, protagonist and basic situation from the 1960s television series in which David Janssen, as the luckless Kimble, was pursued across many years and many states by Barry Morse's implacable detective. It was Les Miserables in prime time, and that overtone is lost in this adaptation, which compresses the pursuit and confines it mostly to Chicago. But the tension and realism that result from permitting Kimble less running room amply compensate for the diminishment of the original's romantic aura.

Not all that was good about the old Kimble has been lost. He can still spare risky time to help others, like a child being ignored, at peril to his life, in an emergency room. He still has the recklessness that comes to people who have nothing left to lose (the most spectacular of his hair-breadth escapes is a dive into the torrent coursing over a dam hundreds of feet high). And he still has his own pursuit to pursue -- of the one-armed man whom he alone knows is his wife's actual murderer.

Busy fellow, and nobody plays harried better than Harrison Ford. He plays other things well too, notably in the scene in which, as he is interrogated by the police, he comes to realize that he is their chief suspect. Grief, outrage, incomprehension, terror -- what a rich mixture of emotions he registers in a matter of seconds. Jones may have a somewhat simpler line to play in the movie, but he is a marvelously incisive actor, and he brings his character right up to the edge of the demonic without falling into the psychotic abyss. He is playing the role of a man playing a role -- tough omnicompetence -- and the little flickers of ironic self-awareness he permits himself as he judges his effect on others are delicious.

Which brings us back to a final comparison with In the Line of Fire. Both these movies are tightly wound duels between vividly contrasting characters who match up only in the quality of their intelligence. Both more than satisfy the most primitive demand of the action genre, which is, of course, for plenty of action. But unlike most films of their kind these days, they do not feel machine-made. They take the time (and it doesn't require much) for the digressions that enlist real concern -- not just in what's going to happen next, but in the fates of their characters as well.