Cast: Robin Williams, Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan, Lisa Jakub, Matthew Lawrence, Mara Wilson, Harvey Fierstein
Released: November 24, 1993
Oscar nominations:
Makeup (won)
This is a movie I've seen several times and it was a childhood favorite of mine. It still makes me laugh today, though if you think about it, this movie is really messed up! I don't think they could make this movie today. Not because of the transphobia (they could easily take that out), but just because it's so messed up what this guy does just to be with his children. The '90s (especially the early '90s!) were a different time. I remember seeing this in the theater with my family and it was packed.
Daniel and Miranda Hillard (Robin Williams and Sally Field) live in a beautiful San Francisco home with their three children: fourteen-year-old Lydia (Lisa Jakub, the only other role I've known her from is Independence Day (she played Randy Quaid's daughter)); twelve-year-old Chris (Matthew Lawrence, probably best known for playing Shawn's half-brother inthe later seasons of Boy Meets World); and five-year-old Natalie (Mara Wilson, who was also in Matilda and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street). We learn that Daniel's and Miranda's marriage has been rocky for quite awhile now. Miranda gets a phone call from her fussy old lady neighbor who is complaining about all the noise coming from her house. She comes home early to find her husband has given their son an elaborate birthday party complete with farm animals (the goats are eating the petunias on the front steps and the pony ate the birthday cake she had brought home), rap music blaring and hyped-up little kids on sugar (one who is even swinging from the chandelier; ooh, I would've been livid!). They get into a huge fight and this is the last straw for Miranda and she tells him she wants a divorce. He wants them to get help, but she is done with him! I never understood how these two were ever married. She is very type A, by-the-book, likes a schedule, very orderly, while he just likes to have fun! And it's said they've been having problems for fourteen years! They just never made sense as a couple to me. She tells him that they've "grown apart", they're "different", and they "have nothing in common" (that's an understatement!).
At a court hearing, Miranda is awarded sole custody of the kids since she has the house and a career. (Daniel was fired from his job as a voice actor for an animated series at the beginning of the movie because he refused to voice a character who smoked. Miranda is a high-end interior designer, so you know she's the one bringing in the money and is able to pay for their beautiful Victorian home. I read that it sold for $4.5 million in 2016 and I'm still sure it cost a pretty penny in 1993!) The judge tells Daniel he will have visitation rights every Saturday and Daniel isn't happy about this arrangement, but he is assured that it's only temporary and that he will be assigned a court liaison to oversee his case. He has three months to get a job and a place to live and if he is deemed fit to her a parent, then the judge will consider a joint-custody arrangement.
He finds an apartment and with the help of his court liaison, Mrs. Sellner, gets a job at a television studio where he will be boxing and shipping film reels. So now he has a place to live and a job, so he's on the right track... or is he?
The first Saturday the kids spend at his apartment doesn't go very well. His place is a mess because many of the boxes haven't been unpacked yet. Miranda was one hour late dropping off the kids and now she's an hour early to pick them up. When they hear her honk the car outside, they get up to leave, but he yells at them to sit down and tells them, "You're on my time now. You're my goddamn kids too."
Miranda lets herself in and sarcastically says, "Oh, Daniel, how charming" as she looks around. Rightfully, he is not happy with her and she explains her earliness, saying she has a lot of errands to run: the bank, the market, and she has to drop off an ad for a housekeeper at the newspaper office. Okay, so throughout this movie, I am on Miranda's side 99% of the time, but I can absolutely understand Daniel being angry with her here. Why doesn't she just run those errands without her three kids? She still has an hour left! I'm sure she can do all that within an hour! And she'll probably be able to get them done quicker without the kids in tow! But, of course, she needs to mention the housekeeper so Daniel can ask her about that. She tells him she wants "someone to be there when the children get home from school, to clean, possibly start dinner." She's going to pay this person $300 a week. He asks to see the ad and she reluctantly agrees. While she's distracted with the kids, he changes a couple of digits in the phone numbers. We all know what he has planned!
But before he goes to drastic measures, he does ask her if he can take care of the kids after school. He can pick them up and they can stay with him until she gets home from work and he'll drop them off. She replies, "I'll think about it," which they all know means no. She must really hate her ex-husband if she doesn't want to save $300 a week and just have him take care of the kids! However, Miranda seems to think her decision in not letting him take care of the kids is justified when Natalie lets her know, "We're his goddamn kids too!" The icy look Miranda gives to Daniel! Mother Miranda did not like that!
Next we get a montage of Daniel calling Miranda several times and using different voices, pretending to be someone interested in the housekeeping job who clearly isn't qualified. Even though he used different voices, I found it suspicious that Miranda never recognized any of these callers as her ex. I'm sure she's familiar with his different voices or at least would recognize his tone or something. When he finally calls as the perfect English nanny (something tells me Mary Poppins was an inspiration!), he knows Miranda is going to hire her. She tells Miranda that she has worked for the Smythe family of Elbourne, England for the last fifty years. So, two things: I looked up Elbourne, England, and no such town exists. There is a Melbourne, England (which I did not know existed; I just know the city in Australia and I think there's a Melbourne in Florida. I am kind of surprised this will not be a problem for him later, but I'll get to that when we get there). Also, how could she have worked for the Smythe family for the last fifty years? We are never really given an age for Daniel's created nanny, but later it will be mentioned that he was impersonating a sixty-year-old woman, so that means she would have been working for the Smythe family since she was ten! Maybe at the time of the call, Daniel was imagining her to be seventy or older? I don't know why I'm so invested in the timeline of a fictitious English woman, but I am! Miranda tells the caller about her children and the "perfect English nanny" lays it on a little thick calling the girls "two precious gems" and the boy "the little prince." When Miranda tells her there might be some cooking involved, she replies her only rule is that "they'll only eat, good nutritious food." Daniel must have known that would give his English nanny bonus points because Miranda has a huge grin on her face and asks her to come for an interview Monday evening at 7:30. Also, that will not be her "only rule". So even though Daniel had a whole backstory ready for his perfect nanny/housekeeper, he had forgotten to give her a name and when Miranda asks her for her name, he is caught off guard. It makes no sense why he wouldn't have a name ready, but we do get the iconic scene of him glancing at the paper and seeing the headline that reads "Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental" and getting the name that way. Just think, if he had already thought of a name ahead of time, we probably would have gotten something boring like "Imogen Potter" (lol, I just came up with the most random English name I could think of; I know Harry Potter came out after this movie, but I was thinking of Beatrix Potter). Although he needed inspiration for the last name, he comes up with Mrs. Doubtfire's first name on his own: Euphegenia. Is that even a name? It sounds very...unseemly.
Daniel goes to see his brother, Frank (Harvey Fierstein), who we had met earlier in the movie and found out he works in theater, making costumes and masks. He asks him, "Can you make me a woman?" and he has come to the right place! I do have to wonder what he would have done if he didn't know anybody in this line of work. There's no way he could have pulled off pretending to be a totally different person without Frank's help! When Euphegenia Doubtfire is created, we only see her from the back, but we are shown close ups of Daniel putting on a padded, ample female bodysuit (Mrs. Doubtfire is a bit on the pudgy side), being fitted for a mask (which will be the thing that really sells him as being a totally different person), and zipping up the skirt.
Okay, a quick disclaimer. So obviously the pronouns are quite confusing, but I will be using she/her when talking about Mrs. Doubtfire.
The first time the audience meets Euphegenia Doubtfire is the first time the Hillard family meets her too. (Although I went back and watched the trailer and they totally show Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire from several scenes. I feel like they would keep that hidden from audience members if this movie were made today (though it would be a totally different movie!) and the reveal of Mrs. Doubtfire would be a surprise for the audience. Miranda has the kids all line up in front of the stairs to meet her. Chris says the thing that everyone is probably thinking: "Geez, you're big for a lady." She laughs it off and tells him she played football and was the captain of the woman's team. Obviously, Daniel knows what he's doing because his son loves and plays soccer and Mrs. Doubtfire brings up Stuart Little to Natalie because he knows that's one of her favorite books. Lydia is the only one who isn't exactly charmed by Mrs. Doubtfire. She asks her mom why can't Dad take care of them. Of course, Mrs. Doubtfire has some thoughts on this! She tells Miranda that perhaps the childrens' father would be "a more appropriate person." This right there should have been Miranda's first clue! Why would this woman, who would be getting $300 a week, suggest someone else? There's no way if she were real, she would turn it down!
Miranda tells Lydia, "If he would get a job and a decent apartment" (I thought he already had a job at this point?), Mrs. Doubtfire interrupts to say, "I'm sure you normally would encourage the children to step out of the room before you verbally bash their father." Okay, a few things here:
-I don't think Miranda was "verbally bashing" her ex.
-Would someone who was just meeting their employer for the first time really intervene like that? Sure, it might be a little uncomfortable if the mother was talking bad about their father, but she really wasn't. She does make a joke and says if she sent her kids to another room everytime she talked bad about Daniel, she might never see them again. I love how she laughs at her own joke and how stone-faced Mrs. Doubtfire is.
I did find it a little weird that Mrs. Doubtfire called Natalie "Nattie" and Lydia ""Lydie" without anyone telling her they go by those nicknames. I was trying to think if Daniel had called them by those nicknames earlier in the movie, but couldn't remember. He does call them by those names later on in the movie (as their dad).
After the kids have gone upstairs, Miranda tells Mrs. Doubtfire that the kids are upset with her and the Englishwoman replies, "Probably the divorce" without really thinking and when Miranda asks, "How did you know?", she replies that she can "sense" it the way Lydia talked about her father. They continued talking in the kitchen where Miranda asks her potential housekeeper if she would like some tea and Mrs. Doubtfire offers to make it. When she opens the cabinet, she goes on about the perfectly organized cubby where everything is in its place complete with name tags. Miranda tells her that her husband never appreciated it. By Mrs. Doubtfire's overly enthused tone, I could sense that. I laughed when Mrs. Doubtfire called Miranda's husband "a dolt".
She continues making the tea and cracks a joke that there isn't a label for everything. When Miranda points out she seems to know where everything is, Mrs. Doubtfire tells her "everything is so accessible." She brings up the divorce again and asks Miranda if her ex not appreciating her organization was the reason she divorced him. This seems like very dangerous territory!
Miranda tells Mrs. Doubtfire that she reminds her of someone and that it feels like they've known each other for years. Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Maybe we knew each other in another life." This drops really quickly when Miranda tells her that she would love for her to come and work for her.
When Daniel returns to his apartment still dressed as Mrs. Doubtire, Mrs. Sellner, his court liaison, is waiting for him to check on his apartment. It seems kind of late for this kind of thing. Come to think of it, so did Miranda having the meeting with Mrs. Doubtfire on a Monday night. Why not have her come over on a Sunday afternoon? But I digress. At first Daniel starts talking in his regular voice, then quickly changes to Mrs. Doubtfire's English (though, she sounds more Scottish, but my ear is untrained when it comes to the dialects of the UK) accent. She introduces herself as Daniel's sister; "his much older sister", haha, he adds that when Mrs. Sellner gives her a doubting look. She asks if Mr. Hillard is home and tells her she has an appointment with him. Mrs. Doubtfire tells her she'll go inside to get him and he'll be right there, but Mrs. Sellner offers to come in with her. Daniel isn't getting off the hook that easily!
As Mrs. Sellner waits in the (very messy) living room, Daniel quickly goes to his room where he takes off the padded bodysuit, wig, face mask, etc. From his bedroom, he talks to Mrs. Sellner using many puns about the changes he's gone through. As he's talking to her, he puts the mask on a head of a manequinn in front of an OPEN window. Nothing can go wrong there!
When Daniel appears (pretending he's just stepped out of the shower and and was getting dressed in his room), he tells Mrs. Sellner he has two jobs - one where he's working at an educational film and TV company and one where he's cleaning houses. Mrs. Sellner gives him a look because his own apartment is a mess. He jokes it's not his place he's cleaning. I'm surprised he mentioned the housekeeping gig because what if she had asked for the number of his employee? That would have been awkward! She doesn't, though. She asks about his sister and he tells her she's his half-sister (probably to explain why she's so much older!) and that she's half-English and half-American. I suppose he has to say she's half-American because he's American, but Mrs. Doubtfire is giving 100% UK vibes.
Daniel mentions that his "sister" makes a great cup of tea and Mrs. Sellner asks Daniel if she could make some tea. Why Daniel doesn't tell her his sister had a long day and is getting ready for bed, I don't know. That's all he had to do. He tells her to wait right there and he'll go get his sister. As he's in his room changing back into Mrs. Doubtfire, the window is open and two kids in the apartment across from him are laughing and pointing at him. He goes to pull the blinds and this is when he knocks the head mannequin over and the mask flies down to the street below and gets ran over by a truck.
He runs into the kitchen to start making tea, frantically looking for anything that can hide his face. This scene was so stress-inducing! He hears Mrs. Sellner asking if she can help and as Mrs. Doubtfire, shouts "No!" Just as Mrs. Sellner walks into the kitchen, he grabs a cake (don't ask why he had a whole cake in his fridge), sticks his face in it and pops up and exclaims "Hellooooo!" to Mrs. Sellner with frosting covered all her his face. We've all seen this scene; you know what I'm talking about! It always cracks me up the way he says "Hellloooo!" Transformed now into Mrs. Doubtfire, she explains to Mrs. Sellner that she's wearing her nightly meringue mask and starts pouring the tea. Oh, man, I laughed so hard when large drops of frosting plop into the tea cups. I think three fell into Mrs. Sellner's cup. Mrs. Doubtfire laughs and tells her now she's got her cream and sugar. I bet Mrs. Sellner is sorry she asked for tea in the first place! I would have been so grossed out!
Oh, here's a fun fact: this movie takes place in April because in the kitchen you can see a calendar opened to that month.
Frank must have had some replacement masks ready to go because in the next scene we see Daniel retrieving one from his house.
It's Mrs. Doubtfire's first day on the job and when she arrives the kids are watching The Dick Van Dyke Show. I'm sorry, but no. No kid from the '90s (or any time) would be watching some black and white comedy from the '60s. This was probably the only show they could get the rights to. These '90s kids would be watching Duck Tales or Animaniacs or Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?! Trust me, I was there, I know!
Lydia isn't happy when Mrs. Doubtfire turns off the TV and tells them it's time for homework and that she's in charge from three to seven and they will " follow a schedule" and those who don't follow it will be punished. Now why didn't Daniel do this as their dad? Maybe he could have saved himself a lot of hassle if had had been a parent instead of trying to be his kids' best friend! The word "punish" has little Natalie pretty freaked out, but Lydia tells her sister their new baby-sitter is lying and she wouldn't punish them, but Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Don't fuss with me." Heh, I chuckled with how she accentuated the "fuh" sound in fuss. I have to wonder if that was a callback to the famous Elisabeth Shue line in Adventures in Baby-Sitting, also directed by Chris Columbus.
The next thing we see are all the kids cleaning while Mrs. Doubtfire is laying on the couch reading the paper and sipping an iced tea. Lydia is vacuuming, Chris is cleaning a wall and Natalie is polishing the job. I had to laugh at the oldest getting the easiest job. I can understand vacuuming and maybe some light dusting, but washing the wall and polishing silver? That seems a bit extreme. Why not have them do something like empty the dishwasher or take out the trash? Those seem like more realistic chores for kids to do. If I were one of those kids, I would hate Mrs. Doubtfire and I would definitely rat her out to my mom about how she made me do all these chores while she just lounged around. Lydia calls her out on it and says what she's doing is exploitation.
While the kids are upstairs working on their homework, Mrs. Doubtfire is starting an elaborate dinner with four boiling pots on the stove (the most burners I ever use at a time is 2!) and a thick cookbook open. I had to laugh because the pages of the cookbook are severely stained. Good thing there's about a thousand pages in this book (I'm telling you, that thing is thick!) so Miranda will probably never notice unless she makes that meal. I'm not really sure why Daniel decided to cook something so complicated on his first day as Mrs. Doubtfire. We see he ordered takeout when the kids visited him in his apartment for the first time so something tells me he doesn't cook very often! There's fish in one pan and it looks very burnt and unappetizing. Mrs. Doubtfire leans in very close to and starts to smell burnt rubber. Of course the large bosoms of the body suit have gotten too close to the hot burners and catch on fire! After putting them out with pan lids, she ends up getting take out from Valenti's which is advertised as "fine restaurant and gourmet take out food" in the phone book. Ha, remember phone books? Remember how bulky and heavy and annoying they were? Remember when we had to look up numbers in the phone BOOK instead of just Googling them or asking Siri/Alexa to make a call for us? How archaic! I was listening to a podcast review of this movie and one of the hosts, when talking about this scene with the phone book, said, "How did we even survive back then?" which cracked me up.
Anyhoo, four meals are delivered to the Hillard household and cost a total of $135.27 (there was an additional twenty bucks added for the "extra rush"). I looked up to see what that would be the equivalent to in 2024 and it would cost nearly $300! Paying $135 would be bad enough, but can you imagine having to dig out $300 from your own pocket? There goes half of Mrs. Doubtfire's first weeks' pay!
I've seen this movie many times and I'm still not sure exactly what their dinner was. There's a salad with raspberries and the main dish appears to be noodles (some of the noodles are green, so maybe they're made with pesto?) shrimp, some kind of sauce, and carrots. I gotta be honest...this meal...doesn't look that good.
When Miranda comes home, she is delighted because the kids were upstairs doing their homework, the house is clean, and Mrs. Doubtfire is setting up the dinner in the dining room complete with lit candles. Seriously, if Daniel had put in half the effort as Mrs. Doubtfire, he might still be married to Miranda! Or at least she wouldn't mind sharing joint custody with him. As Mrs. Doubtfire leaves, Lydia runs outside to thank her and tell her that she hasn't seen her mom that happy in a long time. It's kind of ironic (and a bit messed up) that it's Miranda's ex-husband in disguise who is making her happy.
It's Montage Time! We see the passage of time as Daniel spends time with his kids as Mrs. Doubtfire (it's kind of sad how he sees his kids more when he's a sixty-year-old English woman than he does as their own father) set to Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady." Okay, for the longest time I thought the song was called "Do It Like a Lady." During this montage we also see Daniel in his apartment watching Julia Child as he takes notes and expands his cooking chops.
I have yet to mention another important character in this movie! Two years before he was James Bond, Pierce Brosnan played Stuart Denmeyer, a former flame of Miranda's. He is very handsome and very successful and he has recently decided to restore a mansion on Nob Hill (lol that should have been the title if there was a sequel to Notting Hill) and wants to make it into a $500 a night B&B and has specifically asked Miranda for her expertise in decorating the interior. We will find out later that they knew each other their junior year of college. My head cannon is that they dated in college, but then he moved back to his homeland of England (Pierce Brosnan is actually Irish, which I did not know!) and then she met Daniel and eventually married him. During Daniel's stint as Mrs. Doubtfire, Miranda and Stuart start seeing each other. Yes, it does seem a bit fast for her to start dating so soon after getting a divorce, but it's all for the purpose of the plot of the movie and it's not like Miranda and Stuart are engaged at the end of the movie (my other head canon is that they do eventually get married...I think Miranda deserves a happy ending with what she went through in this movie!).
Daniel is aware that Miranda is seeing Stuart because we see him as Mrs. Doubtfire looking out the window to see him bringing Miranda home. The first time he meets Stuart is also as Mrs. Doubtfire (because why would Miranda introduce her new beau to her ex?) when she comes to the house and Stuart is there, also meeting the kids for the first time. Stuart tells Mrs. Doubtfire that Miranda has been raving about her; she replies, "She's never mentioned you", heh. Stuart tells her that he was raised in London and asks what part of England she's from and she replies, "Here and there, all over really" and he tells her that her accent is "a little muddled." Luckily for Daniel, the fictional town of Elbourne, England is never brought up.
Miranda chats with her, all giddy, telling her that Stuart is a friend and she doesn't know what's happening with their relationship, but she's clearing glowing over him and asks Mrs. Doubtfire if she thinks he's fabulous and her housekeeper replies, "Oh, kind of, if you like that rugged, handsome type." Miranda tells her that Stuart wants to go out for drinks and thinks that's harmless, but Mrs. Doubtfire disagrees and tells her employer that she thinks it's too soon and she needs "to give [her] divorce some time". I'm really not sure why Miranda is getting dating/relationship advice from her housekeeper, especially when she's only been working for her for only a couple of months by this point. Mrs. Doubtfire definitely crosses the line when she tells Miranda she needs "to let [her] sheets cool down before she brings someone else into the bed." If I were Miranda, I'd be telling Mrs. D. to mind her own damn business! Instead, Miranda just asks her how long after Mr. Doubtfire died she started to feel any desire for anyone else and Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Never", because of course! She seems to shame Miranda for having any thoughts of being with another man which just seems so out of line that I'm surprised Miranda isn't more offended by this. Of course, (spoiler ahead, but we all know what happens) after she finds out that this was her ex the whole time ("the whole time?") this conversation will make a lot more sense since he's obviously jealous.
So it's around this point in the movie when Lydia and Chris find out that Mrs. Doubtfire is actually their father. It happens when she uses the bathroom and Chris also has to go and he just barges in even though the door is closed. Well, does he ever get the surprise when he sees Mrs. Doubtfire urinating standing up! He freaks out and runs to Lydia's room. Mrs. Doubtfire comes in and tells them, "I'm not who you think I am." Chris replies, "No sh*t" and in his normal voice, their father says, "Watch your mouth, young man" and that's when they figure out it's their dad and he admits it's him. I'm not sure why he just didn't admit it was him right after Chris discovered Mrs. Doubtfire was not a woman. He tells them they can't tell their mom or Natalie. In the recent words of Chris, no sh*t! He does acknowledge that what he's doing is highly illegal because he mentions if their mother finds out, he'll "only be able to see [them] through a plate glass."
Looking back, I'm not really sure why they had the two oldest kids discover their new nanny was actually their dad. I don't think they ever admit to their mom they knew it was their dad (at least it's now shown onscreen if they do) and nothing really comes of them knowing it's really him. It would have made more sense if them knowing it was their dad came back into the plot. Like, perhaps if they knew he would be going to their mom's birthday dinner with them as Mrs. Doubtfire and also had an important job interview as himself at the same restaurant at the same time, they could have helped him make up excuses (as Mrs. Doubtfire) to leave the table for long periods of time.
We get another scene of Miranda having a heart to heart with Mrs. Doubtfire and they get on the subject of marriage which turns to Daniel and she pretty much asks her what happened with her marriage. Miranda tells her at first he was "romantic and passionate" and Mrs. Doubtfire interjects to tell her "he sounds like an absolute stud", haha. She apologizes for being rude in advance, then want to know "how he was on a scale of 1-10." Again, I would tell her to mind her own business, but Miranda just replies that he was "okay" (heh) and continues to say, "It was Daniel's spontaneity and his energy [she] fell in love with" and adds that he was funny and could always make her laugh, but after a few years, everything stopped being funny. She was working all the time while he was between jobs, she never got to see the kids, and the house was always a mess, and often cried herself to sleep. Poor Miranda! That sounds rough. Again, I still don't understand how these two ended up married! They really don't seem like a good match. She tells her she was turning into a horrible person and didn't want her kids growing up with a mother like that and adds she's a better person when she's not with Daniel. She sure is opening up a lot to this person she's just met! I wonder if Miranda has a therapist? It sounds like she might need one.
Meanwhile, at his other job, the TV studio where he works as himself, we see him watching a boring host of a childrens' program talking about dinosaurs in a monotone voice. How did this guy even get this job and stay on the air for so long? Daniel even makes a crack that this guy was putting him to sleep when he was a kid, so he's been on the air for awhile! He meets Jonathan Lundy, the owner and general manager of the station. This will eventually lead into Daniel doing an impromptu show on an empty set and Lundy will catch him and loves his act and will invite him out to dinner to talk about him getting his own show.
Well, it turns out that Miranda is celebrating her birthday with Stuart and the kids and they will be going to Bridges, the same restaurant the interview will be set up at on the same day at the same time! San Fransisco is a huge city so I love that both these events are happening at the same place. Of course, this turns out to be a big inconvience for Daniel when Miranda asks Mrs. Doubtfire to join them for dinner. After finding out when the dinner is, she tells her she can't, but Miranda pleads with her to join them and adds "I can't have my birthday without you." But why? Why is it so important she have her housekeeper join them? She does add that she's "part of the family now", but is she really? Daniel will see if he can reschedule the interview with Mr. Lundy, but he is booked solid. I don't know why he just doesn't make up an excuse and have Mrs. Doubtfire become sick or have to travel to England or something.
At Bridges, he arrives with the family dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire and sees Mr. Lundy ahead of them. He hears him ask to sit in the non-smoking section (ah, yes, remember when restaurants were divided into smoking and non-smoking), so when the host asks Miranda where they would prefer to sit, Mrs. Doubtfire quickly insists they sit in the smoking section because she used to smoke and that the best way to keep from smoking "is to be around those who do smoke." If I were Miranda, I would give her a hard no, especially with three kids and one being so young!
Under his Mrs. Doubtfire getup, Daniel is wearing a suit. That must have reeked with all that padding and fabric over it! He will get away from the table with his family (and Stuart, heh) four times. The first time is just to call the restaurant (the very same one he's already at) to ask them to give a message to Mr. Lundy that he will be late because of traffic. The other three times, Mrs. Doubtfire will make up an excuse to leave the table and goes into the restroom to change. While he's changing out of the Mrs. Doubtfire getup, they speed up the camera. They act like he's getting out of it really quick and I'm sure he's going as fast as he can, but it's gotta take some time to get out of this thing: there's the clothes, the bodysuit, the stockings and shoes, the jewelry, the wig, the mask, he's gotta wipe off the makeup. And I'm sure it's even more of a hassle to put all that stuff back on! I wonder how long the Hillard family and Stuart were waiting for Mrs. Doubtfire and how long Mr. Lundy was waiting for Daniel. I feel like a real life situation of this would not work as seamlessly as it does in the movie (well, at first it goes smoothly for him...).
The first time he meets with Mr. Lundy (and he was able to get away from his family by having Mrs. Doubtfire tell Miranda that she needed to take her medication orally (the look on Miranda's face!), he has quite a few drinks of Scotch with him, then looks over and sees his family looks bored because they're waiting for Mrs. Doubtfire to return before they order, so he makes an excuse to leave the table.
Because he's had so much to drink, when he returns as Mrs. Doubtfire, she falls out of the chair when she sits down. Pierce Brosnan looks like he's trying not to crack up. They all order and for some odd reason, Stuart orders the jambalaya, but tells the waiter not to make it to spicy because he's allergic to pepper. Since when can you order jambalaya that isn't spicy? That's the whole point of jambalaya: it's spicy! If you don't want spicy, order the white fish or something, I don't know! But don't order the freakin' jambalaya!
Mrs. Doubtfire leaves the table again and this time when Daniel returns to the table with Mr. Lundy, he asks him why he's wearing lipstick and smells like perfume (he had doused himself earlier when getting re-dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire and apparently forgot to wipe off the lip stick). He says he ran into a waitress he used to date and they started making out, thus the lipstick and perfume. Mr. Lundy is a dirty old man and wants to know if the girl has a "lady friend" for him and Daniel says he'll go ask, giving him an excuse to leave.
Just after he has changed into Mrs. Doubtfire, he hears the kitchen staff say the food for the table his family is sitting at is ready, so he puts a chef coat over Mrs. Doubtfire's dress, goes into the kitchen and sprinkles the jambalaya with cayenne pepper. Only in movies and TV shows does this happen where someone can walk into a kitchen of a restaurant and nobody will say anything. Instead of going to the family's table, he returns to Mr. Lundy's table still dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire (those Scotch's really did a number on him!) and Mr. Lundy gives him an odd look and asks, "Why in God's name are you dressed like a woman?" Daniel does some pretty quick thinking and introduces him to Euphegenia Doubtfire, the new host for the children's TV show. Luckily for him, Mr. Lundy seems to like Mrs. Doubtfire.
Meanwhile, at the other table, they decide to start eating their food without their housekeeper because Miranda doesn't want their dinner to get cold. Predictably, Stuart starts choking on the shrimp and Daniel sees this and runs across the restaurant and as he's giving him the Heimlich maneuver, the mask starts to slip off. A shrimp flies out of his mouth and lands on the table right next to little Natalie, probably scarring her for life (that girl will never have an appetite for shrimp!). I have to wonder what was the point of making Stuart allergic to cayenne pepper? It was him choking that was the problem, not an allergic reaction. Maybe they had him be allergic so Daniel would feel guilty about adding the pepper or they wanted Daniel to be the reason Stuart almost died so Daniel could see he was being way out of line? Who knows?
By this time the mask is halfway off his face and it's obvious who Mrs. Doubtfire really is. Even Daniel knows the jig is up because he uses his normal voice to ask Stuart if he's all right. Miranda is just looking on in pure horror. I love it when when she says, "The whole time you were -- the whole time?" Best line of the movie! She is so upset and the family leaves. They barely even got to eat their dinner!
The next scene takes us straight to the courtroom where Daniel points out he has a residence suited for children (after becoming Mrs. Doubtfire his place became a lot cleaner!) and has held down a job (of course he's talking about working at the TV studio, not being Mrs. Doubtfire!). He admits he had some "questionable behavior", but says he's "addicted to his children" which may not be the best word to use in a situation like this! He gives this very heartfelt speech, but the judge says he thinks what he just saw a "performance from a very gifted actor" and tells him he's giving full custody to Miranda. He bears more bad news, telling him he will now have supervised visits every Saturday and wants him to get psychologically evaluated and then they will reexamine the case in one year.
Back at the Hillard home, Miranda is trying to find a new housekeeper/nanny, but no one seems as perfect as the fictitious Mrs. Doubtfire. They're all talking about how much they miss her as though she were a real person which Miranda points out she wasn't. While they're talking about her, they suddenly hear her voice coming from the other room and there on the TV is their father dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire, hosting a children's educational show. Looks like it didn't take any time at all for him to get that gig!
In the end, Miranda talks with Daniel and he will now pick up the kids after school to take care of them until Miranda gets home from work. She got everything taken care of so it will just be them and he will be able to see them for more than one day a week. Perhaps this is what she should have done all along, but then again, if Daniel had never been Mrs. Doubtfire he wouldn't have needed an excuse to discipline his kids or make sure they eat healthy or clean the house.
I have to wonder what would have happened if Daniel was never found out as Mrs. Doubtfire. If he had successfully passed his court case within the three months, I assume the kids would spend time with their father after school, much like the arrangement at the end of the movie, but maybe Miranda would still want Mrs. Doubtfire to clean the house for her. In that case, I'm guessing Daniel would come up with some excuse and have Mrs. Doubtfire tell her she's moving back to England. I do wonder if Lydia or Chris would ever tell their mom who Mrs. Doubtfire really was. Like, maybe ten or fifteen years from now, would they ever say, "Hey, Mom? Remember when we had that nanny for a few months about a decade ago right after you and Dad split up? Well, did you know that was actually Dad in that getup?" Hell, I wonder if they ever told her they knew it was their dad for awhile in the actual events of the movie.
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.
I wanted to do a double feature and review this movie along with Volcano since both these movies came out the same year and are both about erupting volcanoes (much like I did with Armageddon and Deep Impact), but I couldn't find Volcano on any streaming services and I would have to rent it if I wanted to watch it. I've never seen Volcano before (and this was my first time watching Dante's Peak), but I have a a feeling it's not worth paying to see! So, therefore, you're only getting my review of Dante's Peak. So I won't be able to tell you which movie is worse.
In Dante's Peak, we have one of the most forced relationships between Linda Hamilton's and Pierce Brosnan's characters. These two have no chemistry and I don't know why we're worried about making a romance happen when a damn volcano is about to erupt! Okay, I can kinda understand if they might form romantic feelings for each other because he (spoiler alert) does help save her and her children from the volcano and they go through the traumatic experience together, but they're trying to make them a romantic pairing even before all this even happens and they've only known each other for a couple days!
Rachel Wando (Hamilton) is the mayor of Dante's Peak, Washington. (Before seeing this, I had just assumed Dante was the name of the volcano, hence the title of the movie). Dante's Peak has the distinct pleasure of being the second best place to live in the United States with a population of under 20,000. I want to know which town under 20,000 was voted as the best place to live. This is a very popular touristy place; I guess people like to go camping and hiking here and it is a beautiful part of the country. Even though they have Linda Hamilton in this movie, she has nothing to do besides be a mother to her two children and a potential love interest for Bronsan's character. I don't get it. You have bad-ass Sarah Connor in your action movie and you don't even let her do anything? Oh, wait, she gets to pour and hand out coffee. You see, besides being the mayor, she also runs a coffee shop. The hell? Doesn't she have enough responsibilities with being the mayor of a small town, not to mention a single mother to two children? I realize this is a small town, but you'd think she'd be pretty busy with that. Guess not!
Bronsan plays Harry Dalton, a scientist who works for the United States Geological Survey. He studies volcanoes and such. We get some backstory that he lost his girlfriend (or maybe fiancee or wife, who can remember) when a volcano erupted about four years ago and she was killed by debris. He has come to Dante's Peak to study the volcano and make sure it's not going to explode anytime soon. It is a dormant volcano that is very close to the town. I don't remember if they told us the last time it exploded, but I'm guessing it's due soon so that's why they sent in the experts.
As though Mayor Wando's schedule isn't already full, she's the one to drive Harry to the volcano. Her mother-in-law, Ruth, lives in a cabin near the foot of the volcano. I'm not really sure what happened to Rachel's ex-husband. They make it sound like he just left them. Kind of awkward for the mother-in-law. She still has a relationship with her grandchildren, but she's got to face the woman who her son left every time they visit. Rachel's kids, Graham (about 13) and Lauren (about 10) are your typical annoying Hollywood movie kids. Graham is a little rebel and likes to hide out in the mines with his friends (and when Rachel goes to pick him up, I knew these mines would come back in the movie, and wouldn't you know it, I was right!). The minute Lauren meets Harry, she's already asking if he's married and has kids. Pry much, little girl?
Once they get to Grandma's house, Graham and Lauren are already in their bathing suits, ready to jump into the hot springs. On their way there, Harry starts noticing signs that things are amiss. If you thought the dead trees and the dead squirrels were the worst of it, you thought wrong! In an earlier scene, we see two young out-of-towners who are about to get it on in the hot springs and after the woman exclaims how hot it is, we see lava (I assume, as it was red) spurt from beneath their feet. Graham is about to run and jump in the water (even if the water isn't boiling hot to cook you alive, is it still a good idea to run and jump into hot springs? No, I don't think so). Luckily, at the very last second, and I mean the very last second, Harry is there to grab Graham right before he can leap to his death. You see, Harry already knows something isn't right and his instincts are right when they see the two young adults face down, all bloated and dead in the water.
Harry tells his boss, Paul, that he thinks it's dangerous and they need to evacuate the town, but Paul doesn't think anything is wrong and he doesn't want to panic anybody. Look, I understand about not wanting to start a panic, but isn't it better to be safe than sorry? Though this is a tourist town and if they have to close shop, they will lose money. And you know, money is more important than human life. (For the record, I'm being sarcastic there).
Harry and another volcanologist (named Terry; really movie? Harry and Terry?) are inspecting the rim of the volcano and they have brought along a machine (made by NASA if I remember right) that can measure the seismic activity. Or something. Paul and the other volcanologists are watching all this from their headquarters on the ground on a monitor. Terry sends the robot machine (named ELF which stands for Extreme Low Frequency) a few feet down the crater so it can do its thing. Unfortunately, it gets stuck and Terry needs to go down to get it. He is attached to a rope and Harry tells him he doesn't think this is a good idea, but Terry isn't going to lose this expensive machinery. I predicted that either he was going to die or nothing at all was going to happen and he would be fine and this would just be a fake-out. Well, I was wrong on both counts. He neither dies, but nothing goes smoothy, either. Once he's down, he unclips the rope (I guess it makes it easier to get ELF). Of course, once he does that, a rock slide happens and at first I thought he got completely buried by rocks, but one of his legs get pinned and Harry has to go down and help him. He calls for a helicopter to come get them. Terry has a broken leg, but other than that he'll survive the rest of the movie. (Hope that wasn't a spoiler!)
From the reading they got from the machine, Paul determines there is no imminent threat of a volcano. Look, I don't know exactly how volcanoes work, but you think there would be some sign of impending doom. (Spoiler alert: there will be an eruption in the near future!) All the volcanologists will be leaving to go back home tomorrow.
The night before he's to leave, Harry goes to say goodbye to Rachel (and I think he wants to do more than just say good-bye). While they're embracing, Lauren calls for her mother, asking her to bring some water. The water that comes out of the tap is nasty and brown. Harry asks Rachel to take him to the town's water supply and he finds that the water has been contaminated with sulfur dioxide. He goes to Paul's cabin, banging on his door in the middle of the night and tells him he now has proof that the volcano is in danger of blowing. Now is when Paul gives permission for Harry to put the town on alert. "On alert"? WTF? How about we start evacuating everyone?
Mayor Wando calls a town meeting, but it isn't until like six the next day. These people don't seem to be in any hurry to get the people out of the town. Even if they don't think the volcano is going to erupt within the next couple of hours (oh how wrong they are!), you'd think they still want to start evacuating people right that second because a) might be a good idea to get a head start before that thing erupts, and b), the water is all nasty and brown! How do you drink it? How do you shower? How do you brush your teeth? How do you cook if you can't boil water? How can Rachel serve her coffee with that dirty, nasty, brown water?
Before the meeting, Rachel calls Ruth to tell her to get the eff out of there, but she refuses to leave. Either she refuses to believe that she is in any danger or she doesn't care if there is an eruption and she's just stubborn and will "go down with the ship", so to speak.
Linda and Harry go to the meeting (both of them are headlining it) and leave the kids at home. Well, wouldn't you know it, during the town meeting the volcano erupts and all hell breaks loose. Naturally, people are panicking and making a run for their cars outside to escape. Within minutes, we see buildings collapse and cars get crushed. The roads are soon filled with cars trying to get out of town and we see bridges and roads get swept away, taking the cars with them. I was listening to a podcast review of this movie and the hosts made a good point that while you don't actually see any people die, you see a lot of "car deaths" instead. Oh, we will see people die, but these are characters we've already met.
While their mom was at the meeting (and before the earthquake happened), Graham and Lauren are still trying to call their grandma, but at this point, she's taken the phone off the hook. So Graham gets the oh-so-brilliant idea to take his mom's truck and go up the mountain to get their grandma. What a dumbass. This kid is no older than thirteen, remember. By the time they're halfway up the mountain, the volcano has erupted and their visibility is zero. I laughed when Lauren tells him to make the windshield wipers go faster. Please. Like that's going to help. The air is just full of ash and dust and they can't see anything. Hell, even if it was a clear, sunny day, Graham would still hardly be able to see anything because it looks like he can barely see over the steering wheel! In reality, these kids would have driven straight off the mountain (in reality, anyone in this situation would have driven straight off the mountain!), but no, they make it safely to Grandma's house. Give me a break!
Harry and Rachel go to Rachel's home to get her children. She's calling for them, but they're not answering. (Did she not realize her car was missing?) She finds a note in the kitchen from her daughter telling her where they went. I love the "P.S. Don't be mad" line. Oh, she is livid!
There's no way they'll be able to get to Ruth's cabin in a quick manner because all the roads are full of cars of people trying to get out of town or they're blocked by debris and destruction. Since Harry has this heavy-duty truck (it's pretty much invincible from any kind of damage), he decides to drive across the lake. As they drive across it pretty much only the roof of the car is visible. Just as they're about to reach the other end, the car gets stuck in some mud and it starts filling up with water. As he's gunning the gas pedal, the car starts filling up with water. Rachel starts panicking, but Harry remains calm. He has faith that they'll get out of this. When they were halfway across the lake, they start seeing other cars get the same idea and start following him into the lake. There are Hondas and Toyotas and cars that aren't heavy-duty and should not be doing this. But once again, we don't see any of these cars not making it to the other end. In fact, one of them runs (well, floats, rather) into Harry's car and that's how they are able to get out of their predicament.
They reach Ruth's cabin and find everyone. In an earlier scene, Ruths' dog, Roughy, had scampered out. If you're worried about the well-being of the dog, well, don't. But right now he can't be with them because it would just spell disaster. While they're in Ruth's cabin arguing with her because the old lady still doesn't want to go (so basically those two kids drove up there for absoluetly nothing), a flood of lava breaks down one of the walls of the house and comes pouring in. They all somehow manage to escape the lava, which, okay. Whatever, movie. They run to the lake and jump onto the motorboat. When Graham points out all the fish are dead, Harry knows that the lake is full of acid and warns everyone to not touch the water. He also knows he needs to cross there lake quickly because the bottom of the boat is made of aluminum and it's quickly disintegrating. He tells everyone to not put their feet on the bottom of the boat. This is probably the reason why they don't want the dog in this scene. There's barely enough room for the three adults and two kids on this boat with the limited space they have.
So they're pretty close to the other side, but still have a few feet to go. It's at this moment that Harry realizes that the acid has eaten the motor and they are now stuck. In one of the most WTF moments from the movie, he wraps his jacket around his arm and uses his jacket-wrapped arm to propel them towards the shore. Um, so I guess leather is immune to acid? This is some of the dumbest sh*t I've ever seen. He gets them somewhat closer to shore, but then, with only a few feet to go, Grandma Ruth decides to save the day by jumping out of the boat and pulling it towards the dock. By this time, the water is a little less than waist-deep, so her legs are getting severely burned. Once they're on shore, she can barely walk and Harry has to carry her. At one point she begs him to put her down and he does. This is when we see how badly burned her legs are. The kids tearfully say goodbye to her and she tells Rachel that her son was a fool to leave her. Then she dies a hero.
Speaking of other characters dying, when Paul, Terry, and the other volcanologists are leaving, they cross a bridge where the water is super high. All of them manage to make it across. Paul (if you remember, he's the one who kept ignoring Harry's warnings about the volcano) is the last to cross and the water is getting higher and rougher. Instead of getting out of his truck and making a run for it (as the others are screaming for him to do), he's trying to get across with his vehicle. Needless to say, he gets swept away and goes bye-bye-bye.
Harry and the others have found a truck and this truck must be as invincible as his heavy-duty vehicle because they are going through a forest that is just engulfed in flames. The tires catch on fire and everything is fine! This is when Roughy is rescued. They see him standing on a large rock and he jumps into the truck when it passes by him.
Harry makes a pitstop at his headquarters to grab an emergency locator beacon. (Yeah that might come in handy later!) They realize there is no way out of town and they need to get somewhere safe because Harry has discovered (from looking at his fancy volcano equipment) that they are due to have one more large earthquake. This is when the mine comes back and they drive in it just in time. They manage to be safe from the destruction of the earthquake inside the mine, but unfortunately they are blocked in by the falling rocks and boulders. The car could only go so far in the mine before it got too narrow, so they all get out and walk towards an area where Graham (very conveniently) has water and snacks. Once they get there, Harry realizes that he left the emergency locator in the car and has to go back. Well, that was stupid, Harry. He has to be careful going back, because now rocks have started falling in the cave. His arm gets broken and we even see a bone protruding, oh, god, that is even worse than when we see Grandma' burned legs. When he gets inside the car, more rocks start falling on top of the car and the roof caves in so he's essentially trapped in the vehicle. Luckily, he does manage to activate the locator and his friends, who all presumed he was dead, get this signal and they are able to rescue them.
So I thought they were rescued the same day, or at least the next day, but according to Wikipedia, it's "days later" when they're rescued. I guess I understand that it's going to take awhile to get there (not to mention to remove all the rocks), but I had no idea it was several days until they were rescued. I guess it was lucky they had all that food and water in there (though poor Harry didn't get any). Rachel is relieved to see that Harry is alive and they kiss in front of everyone and Graham and Lauren couldn't be happier. Yay. Now that question is, where will they now live now that their home has been completely destroyed? Too bad we never found out what the best place to live in the U.S. with a population under 20,000 because I bet that's where they went. I bet it's Mayberry, North Carolina!
