On the Run

The Fugitive

Director: Andrew Davis

Cast: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pantoliano, Sela Ward, Julianne Moore

Released: August 6, 1993

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to Schindler's List) 

Best Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones (won)

Best Cinematography (lost to Schindler's List) 

Best Sound Effects Editing (lost to Jurassic Park) 

Best Film Editing (lost to Schindler's List) 

Best Original Score - James Newton Howard (lost to John Williams for Schindler's List) 

(I guess this is what happens when two of Spielberg's movies come out in the same year!)

This is a movie where I've seen many bits and pieces in my youth, but I honestly don't think I ever watched the entire thing from start to finish until just recently. I was very familiar with this movie because my it was one of my brother's favorite movies and he had the VHS and whenever he watched it, I sometimes watched parts of it too. There are only two scenes I remember really well: the speech that Tommy Lee Jones gives (you know the one I'm talking about) and when Harrison Ford jumps from the waterfall because that was just insane. 

I also vaguely remembered that this is based on a TV show from the '60s with the same name, but I wasn't familiar with it. I've never seen it and never plan to, so I have no idea how similar it is to the movie. 

The movie moves pretty fast at the beginning because it wants to get to the, you know, fugitive part, but first we need to set up how Harrison Ford becomes The Fugitive. He plays Dr. Richard Kimble, a vascular surgeon at Chicago Memorial Hospital. He's being aggressively interrogated at the police station because his wife has just been murdered. The movie intercuts with him being interrogated to flashbacks of earlier that evening where he and his wife, Helen (Sela Ward) are attending a black-tie fund raiser at the Four Seasons to raise money for the Children's Research Fund. We see a fellow doctor friend come up to Richard and thank him for loaning him his car. When I watched this the first time (the second time is when I took notes), I totally paid this line no attention; heck, I barely paid that guy any attention. Later, when he and his wife are driving back home, Kimble gets a call asking if he can come in to help with an emergency at the hospital. "I'll wait up for you" is the last thing his wife tells him. 

Back at the police station, Kimble tells them it was a one-armed man who killed his wife and he got into a fight with him. It seems like the police are adamant that Richard killed his wife, which I get, it usually it is the husband. At first, I thought the police don't even investigate this claim of a one-armed man, which I thought was odd because that is a pretty specific description and surely they can check records to see how many males have one arm in the Chicago area. Well, it turns out they do because later we'll find out the man who did kill her (spoiler alert: Harrison Ford is indeed innocent) claims the police have already talked to him and he had an alibi. 

The Chicago PD thinks Kimble killed his wife because she comes from a wealthy family and when they ask him if she's insured, he tells them she was and that he was the sole beneficiary. Sure, that doesn't look good, but it's not like this DOCTOR was hard up for money. Unfortunately, that's not the only thing that looks bad for Dr. Kimble. We next jump to the trial where we learn there was no forced entry and nothing was missing. The most damning evidence of all may be Helen's 911 call which they play for the jury. Even though her head has just been bashed in and there's blood coming out of her mouth, she is able to reach for the phone and call 911. Yeah, she's gasping for breath and whispering but she does get a lot of information out. She tells the dispatcher, "He's still here in the house" and "He's trying to kill me" (which she says twice). When the dispatcher asks her if her attacker is still in the house (I guess she didn't hear Helen tell her that), Richard, who heard something, starts walking up the stairs. Helen must have known it was him and starts saying "Richard, Richard", calling for his help. Then the next thing she says is, "He's trying to kill me." Yeah, that doesn't sound good. Then she dies. It's kind of messed up that her last actions would end up sending her innocent husband to prison. Not just prison, but a death sentence. 

Now that I think of it, while I know there is some questionable evidence against him, it is crazy that he was found guilty. Surely they processed the crime scene and found unknown DNA on both Richard and Helen. Unless this was before the time when DNA wasn't as prevalent. I feel like now they wouldn't have enough to convict him. 

The next scene is Richard being transferred to death row in an armored truck with three other inmates, the driver, and two prison guards. Now, by this time, we're probably ten minutes into the movie, but as for real time, I have no clue. It feels like all this has happened in the last twenty-four hours, but obviously that can't be possible. Oh, well, I guess it's not that important. 

All the prisoners are wearing yellow jumpsuits and their hands and feet are shackled. On the way there, one of the prisoners pretends to need medical attention by foaming at the mouth (yuck!) and when the younger guard goes on to check on him, the inmate has a siv and stabs him in the chest. This causes a chain reaction and the old guard gets his shotgun and shoots the inmate. Everything goes to chaos and the driver drives the bus off the road and it rolls several times down a ravine. There's no way anyone should be alive after this, or at the very least, there's no way anyone should be able to walk away from this horrific crash unscathed, but three people do end up walking away unscathed! 

The driver and two of the inmates are dead, but the two prison guards, Kimble, and another inmate are still alive. The guard who was stabbed is unconscious and needs medical help, not to mention help to get him off the bus. The older guard asks Kimble to give the hurt guard medical attention since he knows he's a doctor and Kimble requests to be unlocked. The guard throws the keys at him and he frees his hands. Now I was a little confused by the next scene. I couldn't tell if he accidentally dropped the keys or if it was purposeful because they drop right in front of Copeland, the other inmate who survived, who is able to take the keys and free himself. I fee like this had to be an accident because surely he would unlock the chain around his ankles and why would he let a convict go free. I'm not sure what Copeland was in for, but I'm guessing whatever it was, it can't be good. But whether it was an accident or purposeful that he got those keys, it's a good thing he did because they hear a train in the distance. It just so happened that their bus landed upside down right on a train track. (That's unlucky!) Even though I don't think Kimble would have wanted Copeland to escape, I also don't think he would want him to be killed by a train. 

They all hear the fast approaching train and Kimble firsts ask the older guard to help with with the wounded guard, but he saves his own ass and gets out. Next he asks Copeland to help him, but he (not surprisingly) also escapes. Kimble grabs the unconscious guard and just tosses him out of the bus where we see him flop down a hill. Kimble jumps from the bus literally seconds before the train hits it. After hitting the bus, one of the train cars becomes detached from the rail and starts following Kimble, who, mind you, still has his ankle shackles on, so he's trying to outrun this runaway train while he can barely run. This seems a little....unbelievable. Also, is this a nod to Indiana Jones when he's running away from the huge boulder? Kimble does manage to jump out of the way.

Not long after, U.S. Marshall Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) and his team (which includes Joe Pantoliano; I had no idea he was in this) are called to the site of the crash. Gerard's first words are, "My, my, my, my my. What a mess." The old guard is still there, giving his statement to the local sheriff. He claims he was the one who saved the young guard (who they will find later and take to the hospital). He tells the sheriff that all the prisoners are dead. I'm not sure why he doesn't admit that Kimble and Copeland are still alive, I guess because it doesn't look good if he admitted he gave one of them the keys, then saw the other one also unlock himself. 

Gerard tells the sheriff he wants to set up checkpoints, but the sheriff doesn't see the need since all the prisoners are dead. Gerard tells him he's taking over the investigation. One of his colleagues finds a leg iron and Gerard questions how a dead man could get out of those and that's when the guard admits he gave the keys to Kimble and that he's still alive. Poole, who is part of Gerard's team, asks the guard if he would care to revises his statement and when he replies with, "What?", Gerard clarifies by asking him, "Do you want to change your bulls*t story?" Heh. This is also the moment when we get the iconic speech from Tommy Lee Jones that everyone knows and is probably one of the first things you think of when this movie comes up: 

The next morning, Kimble is hiding under some bridge and he sees a mechanic by his work truck take off his work jumpsuit. When he walks away, Kimble is able to grab it from the truck (lucky for him that guy left his windows rolled down!) and puts it on. Yeah, he probably doesn't want to be walking around with his prison jumpsuit on. That might give him away! 

Right before the U.S. Marshalls have found the injured young guard and take him to the hospital, we get another iconic Gerard moment where he asks Noah, another member of his team, what he's doing. Noah says he's thinking and Gerard tells him, "Well, think me up a cup of coffee and a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles on top." I don't remember if he ever gets them.

Throughout the film, Kimble sneaks into many places without being detected. And it's not like many of these places are deserted; there's plenty of people swarming around. Sometimes it seems a little farfetched that nobody ever notices him. In this instance, he sneaks into the treatment room of a hospital and stitches himself up. (He had a pretty bad gash on his lower stomach). He then sneaks into the room of an elderly male patient (who is asleep) where he goes into the bathroom to trim and shave his beard. That's something I forgot to mention; he has a beard. I guess it makes sense that he starts the movie with a beard because he will need to change his appearance and shaving off his beard seems like a good way to do that. While he's shaving, he hears a nurse come into the room and comments that the old man must be thirsty since his water bottle is empty. Kimble quickly opens the bathroom door and hides behind it (luckily it opened into the bathroom and not into the room) as the nurse walks in and fills the water bottle. She's chatting to the sleeping patient the entire time. Not once does she look up in the mirror. If she had, she would have for sure seen Richard and gotten quite the surprise! 

After she leaves, Kimble has finished shaving and changed into some new clothes (presumably belonging to the patient). He scarfs down the breakfast left for the old man (poor guy didn't get his breakfast!) and walks out with a cup of coffee. He's also wearing a doctor's coat with a stethoscope around his neck, so he must have found those just laying around. As he's walking towards the exit, he runs into a police officer who stops him and ask him if he's seen the escaped prisoner from the bus crash. Instead of just hurrying past him, with his head down, and telling him he's busy, Kimble looks at the officer and asks him to describe this escaped prisoner for him which the cop does. Kimble states that he only sees that when he's looking in the mirror, "except for the beard, of course" because the cop has literally just described him. I don't know if this is good strategy to admit you look just like the escaped prisoner, although I guess you can't hide the fact that you DON'T look like him. Also, I'm shocked that the cop didn't two and two together and realize that an escaped convict with a beard would probably shave off said beard. Duh. 

But Kimble, disguised as a doctor, is able to easily walk away without getting detected. Outside, the ambulance is just bringing in the wounded guard and he goes over to check on him. The guard is awake and recognizes Kimble and starts to say something, but Kimble immediately covers his mouth with an oxygen mask. Since he knows his injury, he tells the EMTs to make sure the doctors know he has a puncture in the upper gastric area. The EMTs are confused how he would even know that since the guard is covered with a blanket. Well, gee, he probably knows because he's the escaped convict who also happens to be a doctor. 

The guard is able to report that he saw Kimble and this gets back to the U.S. Marshalls team, who are getting the phones of anybody Kimble might call, starting with his lawyer first, tapped. There's also a report that an ambulance is missing. After the ambulance is spotted, Gerard rides in a helicopter, directing the police cars where to go. They spot him heading towards an aqueduct and when he goes through a tunnel, the helicopter lands at the other end, along with two cop cars, blocking Kimble's exit. He also can't backtrack since there are more cop cars coming from that side. In the end, he finds a grate and climbs down there where he finds himself in a tunnel system. Gerard and the others follow him and at one point, Gerard slips and drops his gun which Kimble picks up and points at him, telling him, "I didn't kill my wife!" to which Gerard replies, "I don't care!" Kimble runs off, but he took the wrong turn because he's now overlooking a dam which is at least 1000 feet tall. Now that Gerard has him cornered, he tells Kimble to drop his gun, which he does. He then tells Kimble to put his arms behind his head and turn around, which he also does. But Kimble isn't going to give himself up! He then proceeds to jump off into the waterfall with a very scared look on his face. He should look scared because it's a long-ass fall down to the bottom and there's no way anybody could survive that, let alone walk away from it unhurt, but of course that is exactly what he will do! 

Well, at least the U.S. Marshalls (except for Gerard) agree with me that nobody could survive that. Gerard wants to start a search team and when the others tell him that Kimble is dead, he replies, "That ought to make him easy to catch." 

This is when we see Kimble stumbling out of the water (even if that fall didn't kill him, he should at least have several broken bones). He sleeps outside under a pile of leaves and he has a nightmare about his wife's murder and this time we see the face of the one-armed man who killed his wife, so I guess that's telling us that he remembers more details about him. (Though I think having one arm would be a pretty big detail!) 

The next morning we see him walking along the train tracks and he ends up in a truck station of where he dyes his hair a darker shade. Where did he even get that dye? Was it already just there? Did I miss it when he went to Wad-Mart and got some essentials? He hitches a ride from a woman who picks him up. Great way to get murdered, lady, just picking up random hitchhiker. Luckily she picked up an escaped convict who has morals. 

We get a fakeout when the U.S. Marshalls have gotten a lead that their escaped convict is with some woman in some shack in the woods. Well, it turns out they're talking about Copeland. You remember him? He's the other escaped convict. His girlfriend is harboring him. They sneak in, but Copeland has grabbed Noah and points a gun to his head. He wants to bargain with Gerard, but, as we'll soon learn, Gerard does not bargain. He ends up shooting Copeland. Well, at least they don't have to worry about him anymore. Noah isn't thrilled with Gerard's decision, saying that if Gerard had missed, he would have killed him. 

So where did Kimble end up, you ask? He's in Chicago where he calls his lawyer who tells him he needs to turn himself in. Kimble asks him for money and his lawyer replies, "You're asking me to harbor and aid a convicted felon. I can't help you that way." When he asks Kimble where he is, Richard lies and tells him he's in St Louis. 

Since the lawyer's phone has been tapped, Gerard and his team are able to listen to it. Gerard looks like Mr. Rogers on Casual Friday. He's wearing jeans with a blue button up shirt, red sweater vest, and tie. They listen to the recorded call, trying to determine where Kimble is. They don't think he's in St. Louis because they hear a train that sounds like an el, but there are no elevated trains there. They try to come up with cities that have els which include New York, Philly, Milwaukee, and Chicago. I feel like it's so obvious he's in Chicago; that's the city he was the closest to and it's not like he could make it all the way to the East Coast. I supposed he could have gone to Milwaukee, but Chicago seems the most obvious to me. Once they realize they can hear a guy on the P.A. saying, "Next stop, Merchandise Mart", they know for certain he's in Chicago. 

We see his doctor friend who we saw earlier in the movie (the one at the fundraiser who thanked Kimble for loaning him his car) come out of his tennis club and get in his car. His name is Dr. Charles Nichols. When he stops at a red light, a bunch of homeless guys start cleaning his car and asking for money. Kimble, who must have known that Nichols would be going past there, comes up and knocks on his passenger window. Nichols is surprised to see him, but tells him to get in, but Kimble refuses and asks him for some money which Nichols hands over without any qualms. He asks Kimble if he has a place to stay or if there's anything he can do to help. At that moment, a police siren sounds and an officer tells Nichols he have a green light and to move on. (Would they really turn on a siren for that?) Kimble tells him he'll call him and strolls off. We next see him renting a spare room in a small house of a Polish woman who lives with her adult son.

Kimble has come back to Chicago because he has unfinished business! He sneaks into Cook Country Hospital and when I say sneak, I mean he just walks right in without anyone giving him a second glance. He does hold up a towel to his forehead, feigning an injury (and probably trying to hide part of his face). However, he no longer bothers hiding his face when he takes the elevator to the floor where the prosthetics lab is. He just walks right in, seeing people getting fitted for limbs. He then sneaks into a storage area after a janitor comes out and he quickly goes in when the door is still open. It's just amazing that's he able to sneak anywhere without anyone noticing him and it's not like there's nobody around! In a locker room, he sees a janitor hanging up his uniform and when he's in the shower, Kimble sneak in and takes his uniform and ID badge.  

Gerard and Cosmo (that's the guy played by Pantoliano) start interviewing Kimble's friends and colleagues, starting with Nichols and we learn they went to medical school together. They are shocked when they ask him when was the last time he saw Kimble and he admits he saw him that morning and gave him money. He even confesses he offered to help him, but Kimble wouldn't accept it. Nichols doesn't want to help them catch him because he doesn't want his friend to go back to prison and claims, "Richard is innocent" and that they'll never find him because he's smart.

They continue their interviews and pretty much everyone vouches for Kimble, saying he's a good guy and a good doctor and none of the believe he is guilty of killing his wife. One of these doctors who vouches for Kimble is played by a young Jane Lynch.

In his rented room, Kimble is looking at documents and books about mechanical arms and trying to determine what kind the killer had...I guess. I'm not sure how he would even remember exactly what the mechanical arm looked like, but whatever. And I guess he got these when he pretended to be a janitor? The next day he is awakened by the sound of sirens and he thinks they have found out where he is, but it turns out they're busting the adult son for being a drug dealer. That guy will later tell the cops that Kimble has been staying at his house, but by that time Kimble will already be long gone. 

As a janitor, Kimble goes into the workshop of a woman working on a prosthetic limb under the pretense that he needs to clean the blinds in her office where her computer is located. He half-heartedly cleans the blinds (which he makes sure to shut), but also looks up information on the computer. There's a prosthetic arm database where he can type in information and every time he types in something new, the number of matches narrows until he has only five people who fit the description of what he's trying to find. For some reason, he seems to know when the one-armed murderer last got his mechanical arm adjusted. How the hell would he know that? Even though the woman is wearing headphones, I am surprised she doesn't hear the clickity-clack of the keyboard in her office. The computer Kimble is using is so archaic, it's hilarious. And I thought those candy-colored Mac computers they used on Felicity were old! He prints out the list of five people and puts it in his pocket.

There's been a bus crash and many children are in the hospital as a result of it. Kimble sees a kid on a gurney and he can tell there's something wrong with the kid, but the doctor looking at him thinks he's okay. A female doctor sees Kimble by the kid and, thinking he's the janitor, asks him if he can help them out and take the kid to observation room 2. This female doctor is played by Julianne Moore. I had seen her name in the credits and had no idea she was in this movie. This was before she was really famous. She's not in it very much, but I heard a big chunk of her role was cut. Originally, she was supposed to have a romance with Kimble, but they scratched that. Probably a good idea since basically the whole movie is about Kimble trying to find the guy who, you know, murdered his wife and proving his innocence. Anyway, Dr. Eastman (Moore's character) notices Kimble looking at the kid's X-ray. Kimble takes the kid in the elevator. They're the only people in there, so he's able to cross out what the previous doctor had written on the kid's charts and he writes his own diagnosis, delivering it to the right department. Doing this will save the kid's life. 

Back in the lobby, Dr. Eastman is suspicious and asks Kimble why a janitor would be looking at an X-ray and Kimble replies it's a hobby. She doesn't believe him and grabs his ID badge, telling him to stay where he is while she gets it checked out. Of course, he's not staying put! He scrams! 

The U.S. Marshalls are called and Dr. Eastman gives them her statement. Gerard and Cosmo wonder why a fugitive like Kimble would come to a public place such as a hospital and that's when they see a man with a prosthetic arm and follow him to the myoelectric lab. They come up with their own list of 47 males in the age range that Kimble described with one arm and start cross referencing them for criminal records.

At a payphone, Kimble makes calls pretending to be a doctor checking in on the patients from the list he printed. Being that this is 1993, payphone are pretty prominent in this movie, mostly used by Kimble. I think he probably uses one five or six times. You really couldn't make this movie today because it would be so much easier for him if he had a Smartphone. There was a sign on one of the payphone that made me laugh: "Please limit phone calls to five minutes." You know, because other people may need to use the phone! 

Kimble is able to narrow down the list even more and breaks into the home of the last guy. Luckily, that guy isn't home at the moment so he's able to just rummage through his stuff and he finds pictures of the guy who he recognizes as being the one he got into a fight with and he finds a prosthetic arm in his drawer. He also finds pictures of the guy with Dr. Lentz who was at the fundraiser the night of his wife's murder. 

Back at U.S. Marshalls headquarters, Gerard is told he has a phone call from someone claiming to be Richard Kimble. He and his team are talking and joking, but once Gerard realizes he's actually talking to Kimble, he makes a very irritated signal with his hands, telling everybody to shut up. Kimble tells him he's trying to solve the puzzle of who killed his wife and that he "just found a big piece". He gets up and walks away, but leaves the phone off the hook because obviously he wants them to find the murderer's home, which of course they go to right away.

The one-armed man is named Fredrick Sykes and when he returns home, he wants to know what's going on. They tell him he had a break-in and that a fugitive named Richard Kimble made a phone call from his apartment. Sykes denies knowing somebody by that name, but once they show him Kimble's photo, he recognizes him as the man who blamed a one-armed man for killing his wife and asks if he's coming after him. Gerard asks if he has a reason to come after him. This is when we found out that the police have already talked to Sykes and he was cleared because he had an alibi: he was on a business trip with fifteen people. We find out he works in security for the pharmacuetical company, Devlin MacGregor. 

Gerard's team leave because they don't have any hard evidence on this guy yet, but Gerard tasks Noah with finding out who the guy in the picture next to Sykes is. They will soon find out the man is Dr. Lentz. 

That evening, the Hilton is hosting the International Association of Cardiologists where Dr. Nichols will be the keynote speaker. We see him at the hotel in the afternoon, getting his speech prepared, when his assistant tells him he has a phone call and it's an emergency. Of course, it's Kimble who tells him he found the man who killed Helen. He believes they were after him, not Helen, because "Lentz was supervising the protocol for RDU-90" and he knew Kimble found out it was causing liver damage. Nichols drops a bombshell on Richard and tells him that Lentz is dead, that he died in a car accident last summer. He asks Richard if he can prove this about the drug and Kimble says he can, but he will need his help and tells him to call "Bones" (is that a nickname, I hope) and give him whatever he needs. It's at this scene where I get the feeling that Nichols is behind this, that he's not on Kimble's side, but he's pretending to be. 

Soon after, Gerard and Cosmo arrive at the hotel to talk to Nichols and they show him the picture of Sykes, telling him that Kimble broke into his apartment. When they ask him if he knows either Sykes or the man standing next to him, Nichols says he doesn't but of course we know that's a big fat lie!  

At the same time the U.S. Marshalls find out that the man next to Sykes in the photo is Dr. Lentz and that he has since passed away AND that Nichols lied about knowing him, Kimble makes a visit to Bones at the hospital and takes a liver sample he asked for. He takes it to Jane Lynch who looks at it under a microscope and declares, "Not only did they all come from healthy livers, they all came from the same liver." Lentz was one of the original patent holder on RDU-90 and Kimble was sending him his tissue samples and "he was replacing them with healthy samples, issuing the path reports on them, and sh*t-canning [Kimble's] stuff." Jane Lynch points out that Lentz died on August 21st and "half of the samples he approved were signed the day he died." She believes someone else must have been manipulating this, but who else would have access? It's at this point I believe Kimble knows exactly who it is, but I figured it out before he did, so ha, ha! He's got an enraged look on his face and he tells Jane Lynch he's going "to see a friend."

We get confirmation that it is indeed Nichols when Noah calls Gerard (he had just spoken to Bones) and tells him the release was approved by Dr. Nichols. There's a bunch of cross referencing with phone numbers going on and they find out that Kimble's car phone was used to cal Sykes at 7:30, the night of Helen's murder. Of course, we'll find out it was Nichols who made that call. I'm still a little confused as to why Kimble loaned him his car, but I guess he's just a good friend for him. Unfortunately for him, that was a ploy for Nicholas to get the keys and let Sykes into the Kimble home. But why would Kimble also give him his house keys? If (and that's a pretty big if because it would never happen) I lent my car to a friend, I would only give them my spare car keys, not my house keys. 

They want to talk to Sykes, but he has fled. Both he and Kimble have ended up on the same el train. There's a comical moment where Kimble is siting across the aisle from a man who's reading the paper and on the front page is a picture of Kimble and how he's an escaped fugitive. When the man flips to the front page and sees the picture, he looks up at Kimble, then slowly gets up and walks to the next train where he alerts a police officer about Kimble. This is when it is revealed that Sykes is on the train and he tries to shoot Kimble, but he ends up shooting the officer and they get in a scuffle, but Kimble manages to handcuff Sykes to a seat and gets off the train, but not before telling Sykes, "You missed your stop." Ha, nice zinger, Kimble. 

So now it's time for Dr. Nichols to give his big speech at the Hilton and he is introduced as being appointed director of Devlin MacGregor Pharmaceuticals. While he is talking about the wonder of the new drug, Provasic, he looks up to see Kimble in the back of the room with his arms crossed and glaring at him. Nichols knows now that he's been caught and starts to get nervous and has a Freudian slip when he says "dishonest" instead of "honest" and quickly fixes his mistake. Richard is getting closer to him, so he stops to acknowledge him and tells him he's in the middle of a speech. Richard doesn't care about that and tells Nichols that he thought he got away with it, but he (Richard) knows all about it and that he can prove it. I wonder just how much the audience can hear him? Probably just the people in the front. Nichols asks him to step aside so they can talk. The audience gasps when Kimble accuses Nichols of switching the samples so that RDU-90 could be approved. Basically, at this point, it's obvious that Sykes was hired by Nichols to murder Kimble to cover up that the drug was no good, but obviously Richard wasn't home that night because he was at work and I guess his wife was just collateral damage. Or maybe they went with the intention of killing his wife, then framing the murder on Richard so he would be locked away forever. I'm not really quite sure what the plan was. You would think they would just want to kill him so there would be no chance of something like this happening! Also, with framing someone, you would have to make sure that everything went to plan and it's not like they knew Helen's last actions would accidentally convict her husband of killing her; that certainly wasn't in their plans! 

So, anyway, Kimble and Nichols ends up fighting in the presidential suite that Nichols is staying in and their fight is taken outside where they crash through a glass roof and they both end up in (Nichols) or on top (Kimble) of a service elevator which takes them to the laundry room. At this time, Gerard and his team are on the scene and they also follow them to the laundry room. Nichols knocks out Cosmo with a big lead beam and takes his gun. He sees Gerard and is about to shoot him, but Kimble, who has picked up a metal pipe, knocks out Nichols before he can shoot the U.S. Marshall, so he has saved Gerard's life. By now they all know that Richard is innocent and that's the end of the movie. 

Sometimes I like to guess how old an actor is when I watch a movie and that's what I did with this one. I guessed Tommy Lee Jones to be in the 54-58 range, maybe 52 at the youngest. I thought he would be a good decade older than Harrison Ford, who I guessed was 45-48. Uh....how wrong I was! Tommy Lee Jones was around 46 when he filmed this and Harrison Ford is actually OLDER! Not by very much, just by four years, but still. 

American Gangster

American Gangster

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ruby Dee, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Hawkes, Carla Gugino, Idris Elba

Released: November 2, 2007

Viewed in theaters: November 7, 2007

Oscar nomination:

Best Supporting Actress - Ruby Dee (lost to Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton)

Best Achievement in Art Direction (lost to Sweeney Todd)

So after being nominated for Oscars in the same category (Best Actor) in two years (almost consecutive years; 1999 and 2001) and one being an extremely CLOSE race (I'm guessing!), Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe star in a movie together in 2007, this one. But wait! There's a couple of caveats! (That might not be the right word...) First of all, this was NOT their first movie together. No, film nerds (or Denzel and Crowe fans) know that they starred in the 1995 (and truly terrible) film Virtuosity. I caught the last five minutes of it on TV once and even watching that, I could tell it was a terrible movie. This was before anyone knew who Russell Crowe was in the States. I'm not sure how much screen time they share in that movie, but I'm guessing it's more than the screen time they share in American Gangster! That's my second caveat. Are they really in the movie together if all of their scenes (except one at the end) are separate? You have one story with Denzel's character and one story with Crowe's character. It's kind of like when Pacino and De Niro were in Heat together and only had one scene together in the middle. (Well, I guess technically they had a scene together at the end, but there was't much conversing as they were trying to run away from/kill each other!) I would say the ratio for screen time is 60/40 in favor of Denzel, which makes sense, as the story is really about his character. He plays Frank Lucas, a real-life man who smuggled heroin from Southeast Asia into New York and made a butt load of money. He was the bodyguard, driver, and collector for Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson for fifteen years and after he died in the late '60s, Frank took over. He gets the idea for smuggling drugs when he's watching a news report about American troops becoming addicted to opium and heroin, which are "easily available and relatively cheap", that they get from Bangkok and Saigon. He learns that a "high purity of heroin is leading to an epidemic of heroin addiction among U.S. soldiers" and his eyes become dollar signs. He calls his cousin's husband who is in Bangkok and visits him there. He wants to take 100 kilos of heroin in the U.S. and wants to smuggle it in via helicopters. It's 100% pure heroin and Frank calls it Blue Magic (see, when I think of a drug with "blue" in the name, I think of meth! But maybe any drug that is of high quality appears blue? I really don't know anything about drugs or selling them!). Needless to say, business starts booming for Frank and he becomes even more powerful than he was before. One of the most well-known scenes in the movie is when he flat-out shoots Idris Elba in the head in broad daylight. Well, it was a dealer played by Idris Elba who owed Frank money, and Frank was sending a message to others when they don't give Frank what they owe.

Frank makes so much bank he is able to buy his mother (Ruby Dee) a mansion where they celebrate many holidays. Everything I learned about money laundering, I learned from Saul Goodman and Frank Lucas does not do a good job of laundering his money if he's flaunting it like this! He could probably take his own advice, which is what he tells his brother, Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) when he wears a super gaudy suit at a club: "The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room." There's a very Godfather Part II moment when he kisses him on the mouth and says, "If you weren't my brother, I'd kill you, you know that?" Oh, and if you happen to get blood all over his $25,000 alpaca rug, make sure you "blot that sh*t, don't rub it!"

At one of his clubs, he meets and falls in love with Eva, a young (much younger than him!) woman from Puerto Rico who won a beauty contest. When she meets Frank's mother, she calls Eva "an angel come down from heaven". Now that's a great mother-in-law to have. (Though of course they meet before she marries Frank.)

On the day of his wedding, right after the ceremony, corrupt cop Trupo (Josh Brolin) confronts Frank and his new bride to "congratulate" him. He tells them he wants "his share" of ten grand at the first of each month and threatens him that he's "special" because he's with the Special Investigation Unit. As you may have guessed, this does not make Frank happy and he responds by leaving him a live turkey at his front door on Thanksgiving, then blowing up his prized car.

In a later scene of the same day, Trupo pulls over Frank and Huey, who tells Frank they have drugs in the trunk. Not surprisingly, Trupo checks the trunks and takes the drugs. The whole interaction between them is great. He asks Frank, "What are we going to do about this?' To which Frank replies, "We don't do s**t about it. We close it up, throw it back in the trunk, everybody goes home, have some pumpkin pie, warm apple cider." Trupo tells him, "I got a better idea. Or would you rather me throw you and your brother in the f***ing  river?" Of course Frank gets the last word in when he says, "Or would you rather your house blows up next time?" Ooh, snap. Since Huey is the one who stupidly left the drugs in the trunk and since they lost a lot of money when Trupo took them, Frank smashes Huey's head against the car window after they both get back inside and breaks the window. Frank may not kill his brother, but he will beat the crap out of him. He has quite the violent streak and if I were his wife, I would be a little scared. 

Speaking of his wife, the most Denzeliest line is when he exclaims, "They tried to kill my wife!" to mafia boss, Dominic Catanno, who had guaranteed him "peace of mind", but he replies, "I don't feel so peaceful" after he and his wife go out one night to get some takeout and when she stays in the car when he goes to get it, he sees someone driving by really fast and realizes what they're going to do and is able to run to his car and grab Eva before she can get shot. He doesn't know who tried to kill her. Was it the mob or was it fellow mobster Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.)?  Understandably, his wife wants to leave (preferably the country), but Frank refuses. 

Russell Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who is on the case to track down where the drugs are coming from. His story doesn't really become interesting until he figures out Frank Lucas is behind all of this. For instance, there's an ongoing story line where he and his wife (Carla Gugino) are going through a divorce, and, eh, I don't care. Every time he spoke, I could still hear a trace of his Australian accent, but when he was yelling his New York accent was quite good.

When we first meet him, he is a cop, but he's taking night classes because he wants to be a prosecutor even though he has a fear of public speaking. He and his parter find a million dollars in a trunk of an abandoned car which they got a tip about from a bookie. His partner doesn't want to turn the money in because they'll be pariahs and that, "Cops kill cops they can't trust." However, Richie does the right thing and turns in the money and is called a "f***ing Boy Scout (which is hilarious since it's Russell Crowe) and this becomes an ongoing storyline for him, how people can't believe he turned in the money. I have to wonder, would it be any better if he and his partner had kept the money?

When he is assigned to head the investigation of where the new drug is coming from, he meets his ragtag team which includes John Hawkes, who always seems to be chain-smoking (I think there's one scene where he isn't smoking!), and RZA from Wu-Tang Clan. He tells them their mandate is to make major arrests; they are looking for the suppliers and distributors, not just random "street guys." They discover the new drug called Blue Magic is twice the potency as the  regular stuff for only ten bucks on every street corner. Richie muses, "Who can afford to sell s**t twice as good for half as much?" Be patient, Richie. You'll meet this man soon. As Frank himself will say, he sells a product that's "better than the competition at a price that's lower than the competition."

Richie decides that the Narcotics Squad needs to start from scratch because they aren't getting anywhere. He "borrows" $20,000 from his boss where he pays someone at a Newark car wash to buy Blue Magic and he tells them it will be there tomorrow. When he and John Hawkes see the guy leave with the money, they follow him to see where he will take them. He's headed towards the city and John Hawkes isn't sure if they should follow him because the city is not in their jurisdiction, but Richie tells him to follow him because he wants to stay with the money that he's responsible for. Richie sees the guy enter some kind of fast food joint and just waits outside while he watches a group of men led by our corrupt cop, Trupo, take the bag with the money. He follows the men and stops them to tell them the money is registered and he needs it back. Trupo gives it back and says he can have the money "this time" and threatens him to never come into the city unannounced again.

Both Frank and Richie are at the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight on March 8, 1971 at Madison Square Garden. It was called the Fight of the Century so Richie figures anybody who's Anybody will be there. He notices Frank shaking Joe Frazier's hand and wearing a fur coat and sitting even closer than Dominic Cattano, the mafia boss, and takes picture of him, knowing that he's someone important. His team gets the plates of the limo he rode in. Frank is not only wearing a fur coat (a gift from his wife), but he's always wearing a fur cap that he doesn't take off. His wife was also wearing a fur coat, but at least she takes it off. Not only is this coat just the ugliest thing and makes him look ridiculous and stick out (maybe he should take his own advice that he told his brother!), but I don't know how he can stand being in a crowded arena with that thing on! Gah! The flashy coat is how Trupo found out about Frank and started exhorting him, so he angrily throws it into the fire with his wife watching him right there. I mean, honestly, I hope he would have thrown that hideous thing in the fire regardless, but it was a little rude to do it in front of the person who gave it to him!

Richie's group gathers intel about Frank. They learn about his connection to Bumpy Johnson and that he has his brothers and cousins working for him. They check out his brothers at their jobs which are spread out across Jersey and the five boroughs - one works at a dry cleaners, one makes custom furniture, one works at a hardware store, and one works at body shop (Frank has a lot of brothers!). All of those businesses are distribution and collection points for Frank's drugs and money. They track Frank's moves and note that he gets up at five every morning, has breakfast at a diner in Harlem by himself, takes a meeting with the accountant of his lawyer, usually stays home in the evenings, and if he does go out, it's to one of his two clubs or to a handful of restaurants with his wife. He takes his mother to church every Sunday. He is never seen hanging out with any organized crime guys. As Richie notes, "Everything about Frank's life seems unpretentious, orderly, and legitimate." He doesn't think they're going to get informants inside the family.

They are able to obtain one of Frank's cousins, Jimmy, when they see him attempt to kill his girlfriend when they're having a fight outside their home and he shoots her, but doesn't kill her. They bring him in and tell him they have him for attempted murder which could be fifteen years in jail unless he helps them bring down Frank. They tell him he can avoid that if he straps a tape recorder to his body under his shirt (and remember, this is the early '70s, so this is a bulky piece of equipment...I'm surprise nobody even noticed!). He ends up recording a conversation when he's nearby Huey who's at a payphone, calling Frank, who is in Bangkok at the time to set up more drug shipments. The only thing the Narcotics team hear Frank say is, "Newark, short term, parking lot three" and a plate number. They know whatever it is, it's where the drugs will be coming in. 

While all that is going on, Trupo and his men barge into the mansion where Frank's wife and mother are and while they watch helplessly, tear apart the house to look for his secret stash of money. Not only does he find and take the money, but he shoots Frank's German Shepard since the money was buried under the dog house and the dog (who was on a leash) was guarding it. 

So as I was watching this, I really didn't understand why Ruby Dee was nominated for an Oscar other than it was a career nomination, but there is a scene between her and Denzel when Frank comes home and finds out what has happened and is ready to go get revenge, and this is when I realized it was this scene that got her the nomination. She tells Frank to not kill any cops and that his brothers look up to him and that "Even they know you don't shoot cops." She tells him, "I never asked you where all this came from because I didn't want to hear you lie." She then proceeds to slap Frank (the only person in the world who could get away with slapping Frank Lucas across the face is his own mother!) and yells, "Don't lie to me!" She tells him that his wife will leave, and that "I will leave you." This is really the moment where she gets to shine. 

So Frank has a nephew named Steve (played by T.I.) who has a great arm for baseball and Frank knows the Yankees' manager or coach (of course he does) and sets up a meeting for Steve to meet with him, but Steve skips it and tells his uncle he would rather do what Frank does. Really, Steve? You'd rather be a drug dealer than a world-class athlete? I mean, sadly, he probably does get paid better as the drug dealer. Unfortunately, it also cuts his life short. You could say he did not live his life. 

With the information they have, Richie and the Narcotics Squad is able to find the apartment complex where the drugs are being made and there's a lot of shooting and running and chasing. Definitely the most action-packed and tense scene of the film. Richie chases and apprehends Huey. While this is going on, Frank was at church, so when he comes out with his mother, Richie and the others are waiting for him. More than two hours into the movie, this is the first scene we get with Denzel and Crowe.

There must have been some kind of time jump in the movie because one minute Richie Roberts is the detective who captured Frank Lucas and the next minute he's the prosecutor in Frank's case. It feels like there's a conflict of interest there, but I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know? Literally, everything I know about law I learned from The Practice or Legally Blonde and I'm dead serious. Oh, and maybe that one season of Law & Order (thud, thud) I watched.

This is when we get the first scene (and only) of dialogue between our two main actors. Frank tries to bribe Richie, but it doesn't work on him. In the end, they come to an agreement with Frank giving the names of the cops that took the bribes and there are a lot of names. As more and more cops are being arrested, Trupo shoots himself in the head.

At the end of the movie Richie asks Frank if he wants a drink for his "good work" to celebrate and Frank asks him, "You got any holy water?" and they both laugh like they're best friends now. Yeah, that was a little weird. The tone just seemed off for them to be buddies. We get some information about their characters written in text on the screen such as Frank Lucas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and sentenced to 70 years, but for his cooperation his sentence was reduced to fifteen years and he was released in 1991. Now that is a good deal; he shaved 55 years off his sentence! Frank and Richie's collaboration led to the convictions of 3/4 of New York City's DEA and Richie quit being a prosecutor to become a defense attorney and his first client was Lucas. So first he was this guy's prosecutor, and now he's his defense lawyer? There's gotta be a conflict of interest with that! 

Murder Mystery

Knives Out

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Christopher Plummer, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford

Released: November 27, 2019

Viewed in theaters: December 19, 2019

Since this movie has only been out for a month and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have yet to see it, I will review this movie without spoilers first, then I will have a separate portion for spoilers. Believe me, this is the kind of movie you want to see without being spoiled as it is a murder mystery and half the fun is trying to determine "whodunnit". I highly recommend that you watch it. I was thoroughly entertained throughout the film and you could tell the actors were having a lot of fun too.

You probably already know the basic plot: the patriarch of a wealthy family has been found dead the night of his 85th birthday when all of his family were there celebrating with him, so any of them could be suspects. It is up to the detective to figure out what happened.

Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, the mystery writer who is found dead with his throat slashed. Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc, the detective hired by somebody in the family (we don't find out until the end) to figure out how he died. When he first spoke, it took me a few seconds for my brain to register he was talking in a Southern accent since I'm so acclimated to hearing him with a British accent that I just assumed he was speaking with one, but no, it's quite a thick Southern accent! I loved the moment when he is referred to as "CSI: KFC". Since Harlan's family was at his home the night before for his party and spent the night at his massive home, they are all considered suspects: The players include:

-Harlan's daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband, Richard (Don Johnson). She is a successful real estate agent mogul and her husband helps her run her company. Their son goes by Ransom (Chris Evans), who left the party early.

-Harlan's son, Walt (Michael Shannon) his wife, Donna, and his teen son, Jacob. Walt is the CEO of his father's publishing company. His wife is mostly in the background and doesn't really have any lines and you kind of forget about her with all the other loud, colorful characters. Because of her invisibility, I did assume she might be the murderer...but I won't tell you if she is or isn't!

-Harlan's daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette) and her daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford (she was the main character in 13 Reasons Why)). Joni was married to a son of Harlan's who died. She still stays in touch with her husband's side of the family, but more for the money than anything else.

-Harlan's mother. Yes! The mother of an eighty-five year old man was still alive. That seemed pretty absurd to me. Nobody knows how old she is. I never even considered her as the murderer...or was she? Dun, dun, dun! Again, I won't tell you if she is or isn'!

-Harlan's nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas) who has a good relationship with him. There is a running joke that nobody in the Thrombey family knows where she's from because we hear she's from different South American countries like Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil.

-Harlan's housekeeper, Fran.

When Blanc interviews each person, you hear them tell their version of the story, but then a flashback of the party is shown and you see what really happened. Most of them have tweaked their stories just a tad. We see quite a few people could have a reason to murder Harlan. We see Harlan tell Walt that he no longer wants him as CEO of his company, we see Harlan tell Joni that he knows she's been taking the money that's supposed to be for her daughter's school and he will no longer be giving her any more, and we see him tell Richard that he's aware that he's cheating on Linda and unless Richard tells her about it, he will.

So I just assumed we would get plenty of clues (and red herrings!) and by the end there would be enough information to determine who the murderer was. Imagine my surprise when it is revealed what happed in the middle of the movie. I knew there had to be a catch: either we weren't getting the true story or either there was more to the story than we were told. There's a very amusing speech from Blanc when he does figure out what actually happens and calls it "a donut hole within a donut hole". Not exactly sure where he was going with that, but it gave me a chuckle.

Okay, starting here I will begin my spoiler warning, so if you haven't seen the movie, you should stop reading right now! I repeat, spoilers start now. If you haven't seen this movie and do not want to be spoiled, then stop reading now! You have been warned! And you should really see this movie without being spoiled! Major spoilers ahoy!

So before I get to the spoiler of who murdered Harlan, there's another scene that might be considered slightly spoiler-y. (Hence the reason I have it after my spoiler warning!) The entire family plus Marta has gathered at the house to hear the will reading of their late father/grandfather. They're all excitedly speculating amongst themselves who will get what and how much each of them will get what. To their shock and anger, Harlan has left his fortune and publishing company to Marta. (I would be pretty upset too if I were them!) There's a funny moment when Linda snarls at Marta to get out of their house, then she turns to the lawyer (played by Frank Oz) and asks him, "This is still our home, right?" and he proceeds to tell them that the mansion now belongs to Marta. He left everything to his nurse.

While all this is going on, Ransom has a s**t-eating grin on his face. During the interrogations the previous day, everyone said he left the party early, storming out of his grandfather's office, after having a heated conversation with Harlan. Because he was gone during the time of Harlan's death, he was ruled out as a suspect and wasn't interviewed. We learn that Harlan had told him he was cut out of the will, but what the others didn't know is that he knew Marta was getting everything, so he was enjoying their looks of disbelief as the will was being read.

Ransom helps Marta get away and she ends up confessing everything to him because she feels she can trust him. (I mean, if you can't trust Captain America, then who can you trust, right?) In the flashback, we learn that Marta was the reason Hanson died; accidentally, of course. The two medications for him got knocked off the table and she accidentally administrated him a much larger dose of morphine than was intended when she meant to give him regular medication. She only meant to give a little dose of morphine. The camera lingers when we see Marta injecting Harlan with the needles so I figured this was the real reason of his death (even though we see him with his throat slashed!) Naturally, Marta is freaking out as she is (unsuccessfully) trying to search for the antidote in her bag. She tells him that she needs to give it to him within the next ten minutes or he will die, When she can't find him, she goes to call 9-1-1, but he stops her, telling her the ambulance won't make it in time since they are in the middle of nowhere. He knows Marta will be blamed for his death and since he knows her mother is an illegal immigrant, he doesn't want anything to happen to her. Being the mystery writer he is, he comes up with an intricate plan (within a matter of minutes, mind you) where she should make a big deal of leaving and stating the time, then sneak back into the house (coming through a secret window) and put on his robe and come down for a snack so people will think he's still alive at the time. Since I've only seen this movie once, the details are a little fuzzy for me. I feel like you can probably catch a lot of little details with re-watches. He the proceeds to slit his own throat (at first, his death is considered a suicide...which I guess is technically true). Being that he left all of his possessions to Marta and was willing to take his own life, he obviously thought a lot of her.

We find out that Ransom learned about a slayer clause which means if the person who the inheritance of the deceased is intended to go to is found guilty of that person's death, then they will not receive anything (seems like a good idea to have that in place!) His plan is to make sure Marta doesn't get anything. He actually had switched the labels of the two medications and had taken the antidote from Marta's bag. So, when Marta gave Harlan what she thought was the wrong medication, it was actually the right stuff (because she was so used to the weight of the bottle of something like that, it just came second nature to her, but when she read the label, she freaked out). Ironically, Harlan was never in any danger of dying and slit his throat for nothing. That may have been the real twist to this whole thing!


I love the ending shot where see Marta on the upper deck of the house looking down below at the Thrombey family while sipping from Harlan's mug which reads, "My coffee, my house, my rules." It was a nice callback to when we first see that mug in one of the very first shots of the movie and it was   gave me a good laugh.

You're Either In or You're Out

Ocean's Eleven

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan

Released: December 7, 2001

Viewed in theaters: December 18, 2001

Ocean's Eleven is a fun movie. It's also a ridiculous movie if you really stop to think about it. I mean, there's no way that eleven people could ever simultaneously rob three Las Vegas casinos in one night such as they did in this movie. Once we get introduced to the characters and the plot for the con, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has just been released from prison (for attempted robbery, as we will soon see that is what he likes to do) and decides he wants to rob the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos all in one night. I mean, why be so greedy? Why not just rob one of the places? There is a reason why he is targeting these three particular casinos. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the man who owns these casinos, is involved with Danny's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts) and even though he says this isn't about her, it's totally about her.

He reunites with his partner-in-crime pal, Rusty (Brad Pitt), where he tells him his idea and they recruit a handful of men to help him with the job. They all have a role to play in the heist; some are a little more important than others. They need someone to help finance the heist and with casino security knowledge so they go to an old friend, Reuben (Elliot Gould), who once owned a casino of his own. Terry Benedict is a rival of his, so he's happy to help with the heist. I assumed he helped pay for the replica of the vault they reconstruct and he offers his home as a sort of headquarters, but other than that, he really doesn't help with the actual heist. You always need a tech guy in a heist like this so this is where Livingston Dell (Eddie Jamison) comes in. He is in charge of all the electronics and surveillance. He has to sneak into the security room to set up cameras so the crew can see what's going on. Of course we get the inevitable scene with him where it looks like he's about to get caught by a security guard, but instead he gives him something back he forget and asks him a question about how the wires are working. They need someone with knowledge of explosives when it comes times to blow the vault door open, so Basher (Don Cheadle) is recruited He will also help when they need to turn off the electricity in the city for under a minute. For some reason, they made him British and he talks in this really heavy accent which is hard to understand at times. I was really surprised when they replaced Don Cheadle with Terrance Howard in the other two movies. The Malloy brothers, Turk and Virgil (Casey Affleck and Scoot Caan; I'm not sure who plays who) come in handy as drivers and just help with little things, such as pretending to get into a fight at the casino when one lets go of a bunch of balloons to block a security camera. They're just sort of there to assist with small little details. Rusty flies to Florida to convince con man Saul (Carl Reiner) to join them. He will come up with an elaborate story to fool Benedict. Somebody needs to fit into a small money cart that will be wheeled into the vault room (aka the room where all the money is!) so they hire Yen (Qin Shaobo) of "The Amazing Yen" after they see his acrobat show in Vegas. He's very small and limber and can bend his body in ridiculous ways so he's the perfect person to fit into a small box. Danny gets a card dealer he knows, Frank (Bernie Mac), to be transferred from Atlantic City to Vegas so he can cause a diversion later on. I guess he's the closest thing they have to an inside man. Last, but not least, they feel like they need one more person so Danny travels to Chicago where he finds Linus (Matt Damon), after observing his pickpocketing skills. These skills will come in handy with their heists.

When Danny and Rusty propose their idea to Reuben, he tells them robbing a Las Vegas casino (let alone three!) can't be done and tells them about the three closest times anyone's ever come close to robbing a casino. One happened in the sixties, one in the '71, and one in '87. Each time the perpetrator gets a little bit closer to getting a step outside (in fact the '87 guy actually does get outside), but none get away with the crime. I like how this scene is shot: each scene is shot in correspondence to how that time period would look on film (compete with what everyone is wearing and the lighting), the music matches the era ("Take My Breath Away" is played for the '87 con).

Turns out Benedict keeps all the money in the Bellagio's vault, so while they are still robbing three casinos, they only need to do it one place. At least that's a little more realistic..as much as this movie can be realistic! They plan to hit the casino on the same night a big boxing match is being held in Vegas because they know that will bring in a lot of gamblers with all the tourists coming to see the fight (not to mention all the celebrities) and all casinos are supposed to always have a set amount of money on hand so they will have enough. They estimate there will be 160 million dollars in the vault that night and will divide the money eleven ways. The fight will be held in two weeks so that's how much time they have to prepare. In order to do that, Linus goes to the casino everyday where he observes every move Benedict makes and where he is at all times. Lucky for him (and everyone else), this guy has a very set schedule and does the same thing everyday, at the precise minute right down to going to the bathroom. Seems quite convenient for our con artists! This is also when we're introduced to Tess, who works as the curator at a museum at one of the hotels, and Rusty finds out the real reason why Danny is so set on stealing from three casinos that belong to Benedict.

They build a replica of the vault so they can practice with Yen in the money-cart. This is the most dangerous part of the job because he will only have thirty minutes before he runs out of air so they need to make sure he gets where he needs to be in time so he won't suffocate. They also use this replica to make sure he can jump from the cart to another location without signaling the laser lights. While they do get blue prints to the vault, I find it hard to believe they would know the exact replica of it. And exactly how much did it cost to build this replica? If they had an inside man, this would make more sense. They do mention that Frank provided some information, but I doubt a blackjack dealer who just started working there would know all this information! Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this as this is a movie you're just supposed to watch and enjoy.

I do love the scene where the eleven of them are meeting in Vegas for the first time at Reuben's house going over the plan. Yen, who knows very, very little English, asks something in Chinese and Rusty answers him (in English, but still impressive that he knew what Yen was asking) with a very detailed answer. The look on Basher's face as Rusty is answering him is highly amusing.

Saul has a very good question. He wants to know if they get though the security doors and down an elevator they can't move and pass security guards with guns and though a vault that's pretty much impossible to open and not be seen by the cameras, that they're just supposed to walk out of there with all that money. Danny simply answers, "Yes" and Saul seems satisfied with that. Now, of course they don't want to give anything away with how they do plan to do this. As a viewer, I'm screaming at my screen because I want to know, but presumably Danny and Rusty tell everyone their idea off camera.

Danny has been red-flagged by Benedict himself because he has come to see Tess so Benedict knows he's in town and doesn't want him in his hotel. All security will be watching him when he sets foot in the casino. Of course, this is all part of Danny's grand scheme because he thought of everything. They play it off like it's a problem, but Danny knows what he's doing. This is when everyone else (who knows Danny used to be married to Tess) find out about Tess's involvement and there's a funny line where Saul says, "Tess is with Benedict now? She's too tall for him!"

There's an elevator that requires a six digit passcode every so many hours and this is where Linus will come in and will swipe the codes from Benedict being the stealthy pickpocket he is. They will need to turn the laser lights in the elevator shaft off in order to go through it. Basher suggests a device called a pinch (which they steal from The California Institute of Advanced Science) which can shut off all the power in Las Vegas for thirty seconds. While this is going on, Danny and Linus are doing a Mission: Impossible type move where they have to rappel down the elevator shaft before the lights turn back on. When the electricity comes back on thirty seconds later you see that everyone at the fight has become rowdy, so Terry and Tess leave. The patrons at the casino have also gone crazy and it turns into a free for all. Nobody seems to question that the electricity has gone out and there's not even a storm to justify it.

This is the type of movie where you know nothing bad is going to happen and that our protagonist are going to get away with this ridiculous task of stealing $160 millions from a highly guarded casino. You don't know how they're going to do it, but you know it's going to happen. There may be a few hiccups along the way (and we see plenty of them!), but you know they're going to get out of any jams they may find themselves in. You're really not sure what's going to happen until it folds out on screen, so it's fun to see the twists and turns they take. I had forgotten about how they planned to walk out with all the money, but I have to wonder, where did they get SWAT uniforms and trucks? Did Reuben provide those too? Did they share a cut with someone who provided those for them?

There is an amusing running joke throughout the film, where in each new scene he's in, Rusty is usually eating some type of food. I remember seeing nachos, a fruit cup, shrimp cocktail (very Vegas-y), ice cream, and a burger. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Something I've never noticed before was during the credits (probably because I never watched the end credits), after they credit everyone, it ends with, "And introducing Julia Roberts as Tess". Obviously this was a joke/Easter egg because she was already a huge star by then and had already been in many, many famous movies and had won her Oscar the previous year. It just made me do a double take when I saw that!

I've seen this movie a handful of times, but I've only seen Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen once. I don't remember anything about either of them except that I didn't enjoy watching them and thought they were a bit boring, or at least not as fun a the first one. There is one part I remember about the second movie and that's when Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts as she bares a striking resemblance to her...because she IS Julia Roberts, haha. I don't remember why she had to pretend to be the famous actress, but it was an amusing scene, although you have to wonder...if Julia Roberts exists in the same world as these characters, then why not George Clooney or Brad Pitt or Matt Damon? How come nobody mistakes Danny, Rusty, or Linus for those famous actors? I also saw the spin-off,Ocean's Eight, where Sandra Bullocks play Danny's sister and she recruits her own team of thieves to rob jewelry at the Met Gala. While not as good as the original (and while I know the 2001 is a remake of a 1960 movie of the same name with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr, I consider the 2001 film the original because nobody ever talks about the 1960 movie or probably even knows it exists because the 2001 film is much more well known; heck, I didn't even know this was a remake until several years later!), I did enjoy it more than the sequels. My only gripe (and spoilers for Ocean's Eight about to come) is that they make this big deal how all these women were able to pull off his huge con, but psyche! Yen from the other movies was there all along (recruited by Sandra Bullock unbeknownst to the viewing audience) and helped them with a major part of the scheme. I was like, seriously? I know they wanted to have a fun cameo from the other Ocean movies, but I groaned out loud when I saw that. 

Looking Back at Tragedy

We Are Columbine

Director: Laura Farber

Released: various dates in 2018 at different film festivals

The twentieth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings was not that long ago (how is that possible? It seems like the ten year anniversary was only last year!) and I found this documentary on Hulu. The director is a former student of Columbine and she graduated in 2002, so, if you do the math, she was a freshman when the murders occurred. She interviews four of her former class of '02 classmates (two boys and two girls), a teacher who started his first year at Columbine as a freshman English teacher during the '98/'99 school year (yikes!), but is still teaching there, and Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal from 1996 to a few years ago when he retired.

So before you're wondering if any of the former students interviewed were in the library where ten of the thirteen murders and the two suicides occurred, no, they were not. Three of them were in their classes and one of them was in the cafeteria. The girl who was in the cafeteria tells the director it's very hard telling her memories of this horrific event, but she's only doing it because the director is her friend (she was also eating lunch with her that day) and she knows what she went through that day. As far as I know, she (or anyone else interviewed) didn't see anyone get killed in front of them, but if she has a difficult time talking about this, then there's no way someone who was in the library would want to relive their memories. I'm not saying that they had it "easier" because they're weren't at Ground Zero, because if I put myself in their shoes, where, if I was a freshman at my high school and two seniors brought guns to school and killed twelve students and one teacher before offing themselves, yeah, I would be pretty shook up and freaked out too. I'm surprised they returned to their school to finish their next three years of high school, because, honestly, I don't know if I would be able to do that. One girl said she knows where all the exits are anywhere she goes in case of something like that happening again and that any loud noises like fireworks or a balloon popping makes her anxious. I would also imagine a fire alarm going off also puts them all on edge since one was going off that day. I've never been in a situation like that and fire alarms make me anxious; I can only imagine what it does to them! 

The four former students go through their memories of that day. The girl who was in the cafeteria says she heard loud shots and thought it was a senior prank and then a teacher told everyone to get under the table, which she did with the other students she was sitting with. They later ran to a nearby house where the man who lived there called the police. She would later find out that one of the two duffel bags with a bomb inside was placed under the table she hid under...yikes! But luckily it didn't detonate. If you didn't know, this wasn't supposed to be just a school shooting: it was supposed to be a bombing that would rival Oklahoma City. Their plan was to "top" McVeigh and kill as many students and faculty members and then each one would be in a different parking lot with their guns and shoot any survivors streaming out of the doors, then they planned to kill any media and police that would make their way to the school. Yeah, their plan went a bit differently... In fact, DeAngelis points that out, saying they could have lost hundreds of people that day and that's how he knows there's a God. 

One of the former students who was in a locked classroom talks about how they were in there for hours (three or four, maybe by that time) before the police came in and told them to put their arms locked behind their heads and run out of the school. Unfortunately the police came right at the time he said he and a few of the other boys in the class had to use the bathroom so they got a trashcan to urinate in and right when he was about to go (in as much privacy the corner of the room could offer him), that's when they barged in. Understandably, that's the only humorous part of the film. He also says when they were locked in the classroom, he heard keys rattling in the door and a teacher came in without his shirt on, covered in blood, and rummaged through the cabinets before running out again. I have to wonder if he was helping the teacher who was shot and would eventually die? Or a student who was wounded when they got shot? We don't really find out what that was about.

The title of the movie comes from their rally cry which was created in 1989 by a coach. One of the interviewees said he thought that had transpired after the shootings, which, I can't blame him, as it has more of a poignancy. Before the shootings it jut sounds like an obvious statement. Also, he probably doesn't remember anything from his only normal year of high school, plus, as he adds, he was probably getting stoned somewhere!

Another former students says when he was running outside and a policeman told them to get away from the school, he had asked him if they had to return to class later that afternoon. He says now he realizes how ridiculous that was, but in that moment it was just a confusing and surreal moment. 

I never really though about it before, but the Columbine class of '02 had it pretty rough. They had one normal year of school before everything turned to hell and during their next three years, security was heightened to the max. That school probably became the safest school in America, ironically. They had all these security measures that was super frustrating for them. Think of the airports after 9/11. Remember how people used to be so lax about airport security? DeAngelis says that he knew the students hated the ridiculous security measurements, but the parents insisted on them. They also talk about how the media would always be harassing them for interviews and how tour buses would pull up to their school with tourists. Look, it's one thing if a couple of young idiots drive there in their own cars if they're into ghoulish things, but a tour bus? Someone is making money off of this? Ick. One of the girls was on the track team and volleyball team and when she would wear her uniform people at the other schools she was competing at would ask her if she was there THAT day. I won't lie; if I ever met someone that attended Columbine, I would probably think, Oh, they go to THAT school. (Why I would ever be conversing with a teenager from Littleton is beyond me, though!) 

As one of the girls says, "It's not a normal experience". Despite this, all four former students (who are in their mid-30s) have normal and stable lives. A couple of them are in steady relationships and they all went on to have some sort of career. One became a teacher at Columbine and he says he's one of five teachers there now who were students on the day of the shootings. Another became a social worker, another one is in the medical field, and one became a recording artist. One of these things is not like the other! Would it surprise you if I told you the stoner kid became the recording artist?

In this hour and a half documentary, there's probably really only about twenty minutes of interesting information. I find that even if you had never heard of this massacre, you really wouldn't be surprised by what the former students were saying. It's really more about their experience that day (though they don't really go that much into depth about it) and then how the rest of their high school career was like living after tragedy. If you are interested in the Columbine school shootings in much more detail, I would recommend two books. The first is called Columbine by the Denver-based journalist Dave Cullen. It's probably the most well known account of the shootings and goes into a lot of detail before, during, and after the tragedy. It's vey disturbing, insightful, fascinating, and while I was reading it, I would go, "What?...What?....WHAT??" Because there were a lot of things that shocked me; either things I didn't know or had forgotten or vaguely remembered. If you're into true crime stories, it's worth checking out. The other book is A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy and it's by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two shooters. Her story about what happened that day is much more interesting and devastating than any of the class of '02 graduates who were interviewed. The parents of the shooters went through absolute hell and she talks about what it was like. She's only started sharing her story within the last few years and the book is really quite interesting. Not surprisingly, she is an advocate for parents checking their kids' bedrooms. I think it's a terrible idea for parents to snoop through their teenagers' stuff, but of all people, I can understand why she would insist parents to do that. It's probably never a bad idea to check under your kids' beds or in their closest just to make sure they're not hiding any guns or bombs. Both of those books made me cry while reading them; this documentary really didn't evoke any emotion from me.