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Spending a sweltering afternoon screening the Harrison Ford Fugitive remake for our daughter & marveling anew at what a perfectly constructed mainstream studio thriller it is. You don't even mind that the big action finale is...a fistfight between two middle-aged doctors.
I love that the Kimble character isn't just defined by his relentlessness & smarts, but by his compassion. Three different times, he risks his own safety & freedom to help others. With the deputy on the bus, again when he's admitted to the hospital & finally with the injured kid.
Even in the El train confrontation with the one-armed man, Kimble's first instinct is to see if he can help the shot cop before taking off for his final reckoning.
It's one of Ford's very best & most engaged performances, too. The "YOU FIND THAT MAN!" scene was often parodied by late night comics but it's a stunning piece of acting, as a man in deep grief slowly realizes that the police think he's the guilty one.
There's a whole subtext to the film that Kimble is so paralyzed by grief that he doesn't offer a very effective legal defense, & the bus-train collision besides freeing him also activates him to bring his wife's killer to justice.
My wife also pointed out how there are cops in SO many of the Chicago scenes, either lurking in the background or as a nearby siren. It's a great, subtle way of adding tension to every scene with Kimble in it. Even after he gets away, he's still in danger at almost every turn.
