TriStar Pictures, Rated R
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Written by David Klass

When I was watching this movie, I was continually skeptical. The whole first half looked like it was going to be your usual shoot-'em-up, cops-and-robbers action flick. The second half, however, kept this from being a completely derivative, terrible film. Officer Frank Conner's (Andy Garcia) son is gravely ill and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant. The only compatible donor happens to be Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton), a prisoner in solitary confinement for several murders, in short he's a psychopath. (Pretty lucky that he's apparently in a nearby San Francisco prison.) McCabe, after declining at first, changes his mind, and decides to do it (which should have been a wake-up call to Frank). Anyway, after a good sequence which shows us exactly how he plans to escape (if he didn't escape this movie would be 30 minutes long), and a demonstration (to me, anyway) of how appalingly low the security is during the operation, McCabe makes a break for it. What follows is admittedly a great thrill ride, despite quite a few implausible plot points and stunts. Remember when Dustin Hoffman said "We can't have a war without a hero"? Well, you can't make one of these action flicks without a helpless woman that constantly has to be rescued and serves as a great hostage for the villain. Klass remembered this, and we have one in the form of Marcia Gay Harden as a nurse who originally headed up the transplant. Keaton does his best not being a Hannibal Lecter clone and he makes the character likable at several points, a move which I really question. I think it was more Klass's idea than Keaton's, however. There's some nice cinematography by Luciano Tovoli, and the final scene is totally unpredictable even if it is, again, completely implausible. **

---

Back to the main page