It practically defines the words "routine thriller." Pieces of the plot are taken from "In The Line of Fire" and "The Fugitive" and probably others. It's about a Secret Service agent (Douglas) who is framed as part of a very real plot to assassinate the president of the United States. It's hard to imagine why Michael Douglas, who has both talent and a high salary, should be chosen for this undemanding role. The producers had a good chance to hire some talented but lesser-known figure, saved money without sacrificing quality, and wind up with the same results. And the director doesn't add much. The camera seems always to be moving. It jerks and spins jiggles and racks and zip pans and goes unexpectedly and unnecessarily into step motion. Now a real novelty would be if they held the damned thing still.
It's always interesting these days to see Hollywood floundering around in an attempt to find a suitable ethnicity for the heavies. Hippy radicals and black liberationists are as extinct as the passenger pigeon. Germans are showing up less often as World War II fades from memory, except that they do put in their occasional appearances still, as in "Die Hard." Like "Air Force One," this film opts for our old Cold War adversary, the Russians, "ex-KGB", but who are now identified as coming from someplace with a name like Samovaristan. Where and when will we see a new enemy on the Hollywood screen? The Arabs are waiting tensely in the wings for their introduction. Oh, sure, they'll have to come from another fictional country -- too much oil in the Middle East to rub anyone's fur the wrong way -- but the audience will be able to decipher the code. They may be from The Monarchy of Ramada but to us they'll always be "Arabs". Probably a radical sect of Moslems. Actually the chief hood in this film happens to have a working-class British accent but what the heck -- one foreign accent is as good as another.
The first half hour is filled with intrigue. Douglas is hated by one of his colleagues, Agent Javert or whatever his name is, played by Kiefer Sutherland, because of an imagined affair with Sutherland's wife. The fact is though that Douglas has been having an affair with the president's wife, Kim Basinger, so when Douglas is asked during a polygraph whether he's done anything to break the code of the Secret Service, well -- he flunks it. And the chase is on. Shootouts in malls, hotel basements, ships, in mid-air, on rooftops, and in seedy rooms. The bad guys all die. The good guys all live.
You've seen better.
It's always interesting these days to see Hollywood floundering around in an attempt to find a suitable ethnicity for the heavies. Hippy radicals and black liberationists are as extinct as the passenger pigeon. Germans are showing up less often as World War II fades from memory, except that they do put in their occasional appearances still, as in "Die Hard." Like "Air Force One," this film opts for our old Cold War adversary, the Russians, "ex-KGB", but who are now identified as coming from someplace with a name like Samovaristan. Where and when will we see a new enemy on the Hollywood screen? The Arabs are waiting tensely in the wings for their introduction. Oh, sure, they'll have to come from another fictional country -- too much oil in the Middle East to rub anyone's fur the wrong way -- but the audience will be able to decipher the code. They may be from The Monarchy of Ramada but to us they'll always be "Arabs". Probably a radical sect of Moslems. Actually the chief hood in this film happens to have a working-class British accent but what the heck -- one foreign accent is as good as another.
The first half hour is filled with intrigue. Douglas is hated by one of his colleagues, Agent Javert or whatever his name is, played by Kiefer Sutherland, because of an imagined affair with Sutherland's wife. The fact is though that Douglas has been having an affair with the president's wife, Kim Basinger, so when Douglas is asked during a polygraph whether he's done anything to break the code of the Secret Service, well -- he flunks it. And the chase is on. Shootouts in malls, hotel basements, ships, in mid-air, on rooftops, and in seedy rooms. The bad guys all die. The good guys all live.
You've seen better.