Harrison Ford

Witness

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1985)

“I’m learning a lot about manure. Very interesting.”

— John Book

More drama than thriller, Peter Weir’s Witness is laced with action, sexual tension, and for good measure (or for good use of star Harrison Ford) a bit of comedy.

Ford is John Book, a jaded smartass Philadelphia detective. While investigating the murder of an undercover cop at a train station, he meets six-year-old Samuel Lapp (Lukas Haas), an Amish boy who witnessed the killing from a stall in the men’s room, and the boy’s recently widowed mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis). She doesn’t quite trust Book or the world he comes from, but has to set aside her misgivings because he’s their protector for the time being.

Book stumbles upon a plot inside the Police Department and is forced into hiding after an ambush that nearly takes his life. At Rachel’s insistence, he retreats to her community in rural Lancaster County — “Amish country.” Book clumsily and reluctantly adapts to the lifestyle, and he shows he’s got a heart of gold beating underneath all that urbane crustiness. His “English” presence, though, threatens the peace of the Old Order and jeopardizes Rachel’s standing.

A sort of Blade Runner (https://moviebloke.com/2017/03/26/blade-runner-the-final-cut/) set in Amish Pennsylvania, Witness gets into morality, corruption, and culture clash. Its comparison/contrast of the Amish with the modern world is platitudinous and heavy-handed, so much that I found myself rolling my eyes at points. The climax is totally predictable but the tension between Book and Rachel is actually pretty good — good enough to make their subplot romance more interesting than the rest of the film. McGillis bears her breasts in an uncomfortably erotic scene. Bonus: Patti LuPone and Viggo Mortensen both have small parts, which I did not know going into this.

Ford’s only Oscar nomination, perhaps surprisingly, was for his performance in Witness (http://www.tvguide.com/news/oscars-2017-actors-who-have-never-won-an-academy-award/). He lost to William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman (https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1986). I can’t dispute the wisdom of that call. Still, Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley won for their screenplay.

With Danny Glover, Josef Sommer, Alexander Godunov, Brent Jennings, Jan Rubes, Angus MacInnes, Frederick Rolf, John Garson, Beverly May, Ed Crowley, Timothy Carhart, Marian Swan, Maria Bradley, Rozwill Young, Robert Earl Jones

Production: Paramount Pictures, Edward S. Feldman

Distribution: Paramount Pictures (USA), United International Pictures (UIP) (International), Cinema International Corporation (CIC) (France), Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI) (Sweden)

112 minutes
Rated R

(Facets) C+

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1982, 2007)

Ridley Scott is hit or miss with me, Harrison Ford bores me, and I tend to eschew science fiction. So, neo-noir sci-fi drama Blade Runner doesn’t seem like something that would appeal to me. It does, though—in fact, I love it.

Like Alien, another gem by Scott, Blade Runner succeeds on so many levels. Executed near flawlessly, its themes and narrative, its structure and pace, its sets and technical aspects are all polished, eloquent, and downright cerebral. It cuts right to the heart of humanity—what’s beautiful about it and what isn’t, and what it is to be human.

Los Angeles, November 2019: six rogue artificial humans known as replicants that were banished to an “off-world” work camp in space return to Earth in a desperate attempt to extend their life. Created by tech behemoth Tyrell Corporation, this particular model, the Nexus-6, is the smartest and strongest replicant. However, it has a lifespan of only four years—and the meter is ticking. Fortunately for them, replicants are indistinguishable from real humans, except for their emotional responses. It takes a lengthy question-and-answer test to positively identify them.

Burned out former cop Rick Deckard (Ford), whose job as a blade runner was to track down replicants and “retire,” or kill them, is persuaded—okay, extorted—out of a self-imposed furlough to find and get rid of these troublemakers. Stat. The job isn’t an easy one, particularly where charmingly weird and conniving Pris (Daryl Hannah) and invincible badass Roy (Rutger Hauer) are involved.

As Deckard searches for his targets, he meets and gets to know the rather severely formal Rachael (Sean Young), assistant to replicant inventor Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). Rachael doesn’t know she’s a replicant. Tyrell asks Deckard to retire her as well, but there’s a problem: Deckard realizes he’s falling for her.

Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—with the title taken from Alan E. Nourse’s novel The Blade Runner, which had nothing to do with Dick (https://www.neondystopia.com/cyberpunk-movies-anime/the-story-behind-blade-runners-title/)—Blade Runner is dark in every sense of the word. Jordan Cronenweth’s cinematography is stunningly bleak. The setting might be Los Angeles, but Scott slyly references Metropolis—only he refits it to Hong Kong or Tokyo. Many of the ideas explored here are eerily relevant today, especially the way morality plays out with corporations, genetic engineering, a police state, the environment, and hierarchy of life and life forms.

Blade Runner is a weighty movie, but seriousness aside—I found myself entertained with a number of things that simply aren’t present today: PanAm, Atari, and TDK. Smoking indoors. Pay phones. Photographs. Even urban decay. I was also floored that one of the replicants was “born” 20 days after this screening. Plus, Roy is a bionic Ken doll and Pris looks like a club kid from Party Monster. Still, Blade Runner is timeless; I’ll see it again in three or 33 years and still swoon over it. Yes, it’s that good. The Final Cut is Scott’s own finetuned version of the original theatrical release. It kills me that after all this time, a sequel that I probably won’t see is coming out later this year.

In 1993, the United States Library of Congress deemed Blade Runner “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

With Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, William Sanderson, Brion James, Joanna Cassidy, Kevin Thompson, John Edward Allen, Robert Okazaki

Production: Ladd Company, The Shaw Brothers/Sir Run Run Shaw, Warner Brothers

Distribution: Warner Brothers

117 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) A

https://www.warnerbros.com/blade-runner