Lam: The Fugitive

The Flee

                The Fugitive is an interesting 1990's chase crime film featuring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones as the main protagonist and antagonist. Contrary to Ford's other films, Ford's character Richard Kimble is put high on a pedastal and kicked down continuously. The normally heroic Ford takes quite the opposite turn in portraying a desperate man who was stripped of everything, including money, love, and freedom. As Pfeiffer also iterates, invoking feelings of sympathy and empathy in the audience was key to this drama film (Pfeiffer 212).

                One of the most important scenes of this carnage is actually the post-carnage event of Kimble (Harrison Ford) running away afterwards. Why would he even run away in the first place? Many may cite fear as the biggest factor and pushing force, but yes, while acknowledging that there is fear inherent in this action, he mostly wanted to escape a bad situation in order to regroup and prove his innocence. As other characters in the film said, everyone acknowledged the fact that Richard Kimble was too smart. If one were to follow his thought process, he transformed from being a vasculocardiac surgeon to being a private detective. However, it was extremely interesting to see him display his medical knowledge, and the fact that this was the profession given to his character helped the audience understand his humanity and thus his innocence. Many people look upon doctors and physicians with scorn and envy, but often, these people never stop to think about the difficulty that these physicians went through in order to get to where they are that warrants such a high salary. However, by taking this away from his character, Kimble was forced to start over, and the train wreck deux ex machina was the catalyst for this reset.

                I would like to focus on the flee of Kimble that occurs before the chase begins. Again, I would like to pose the question of why Kimble would even run in the first place. If he were to stay and wait for help, he would have most likely continued on to prison and never get the chance to prove his innocence. His fleeing is a big gamble, but it was his only chance and choice at the time if he wanted to prove his innocence. Therefore, by fleeing, this reinforces his innocence because he had something to prove, if not to the marshalls and police then at least to himself. The forest then represented freedom and the chance to prove his innocence while the train wreck's calamity represented the chaos and impending doom of his death sentence. This connection is important because in addition to Kimble's actions, the setting also helps show off his innocence. The flee is an important, if not one of the most important, aspects to displaying his innocence.

O'Connell: The Fugitive

Richard Kimble’s innocence and moral virtue play a large role in the film’s driving, emotional storyline, as his personal integrity must be firmly established to keep the character in the audience’s good graces. Both sympathy and respect for Kimble are necessary to retain the film’s representation of a wrongfully accused man attempting to make things right. Pfeiffer identifies these attributes as they affect the film’s atmospheric and underlying concepts:

“The audience, which is used to rooting for Ford in any number of other films, instantly feels a sympathy for his character, which is essential in such an emotional story. We have to feel Kimble’s frustration, fears, and anguish so that his final triumph is all the more satisfying.” (Pfeiffer 212)

Many scenes throughout the length of the film reestablish Kimble’s respectable character as something of a reminder of his righteousness, or atonement for the less consequential misdemeanors he is forced to commit. Just as he is in the process of escaping from his imprisonment, Kimble attempts to save the young injured prison guard from the bus wreck before the train hits it. When placed in such a precarious position, his selflessness shining through demonstrates more of how this man should not be so quickly deemed guilty, especially so in regards to the other inmate and the older prison guard, who abandon the injured guard and Kimble in the wreckage. The contrast this provides show the audience that Kimble holds the moral high ground in contrast to his “fellow murderer”, as well as to the apparent authority figure who both abandons his junior in an act of self preservation, later glorifying himself in his account to the investigators later. This reinforces all of Kimble’s virtues of selflessness, courage, and his indefatigable sense of justice.

Kimble’s heroism in this scene also reimposes his character’s highest motivation, the pursuit and capture of his wife’s true murderer. This unselfish motivation drives all of his actions, as Kimble is not simply on the run from the law, but seeks a higher objective than his own freedom, which is simply a byproduct. Were he simply concerned with his own freedom, he could have fled across country, or left the nation. However, he instead returns right back into the belly of the beast to pursue his goal at his own risk. This goal is not even simple vengeance, as we see in his first conflict with the murderer in the traincar. He does not kill him, he instead decides to incapacitate him and leave him handcuffed for the police to find, and continues to tear away the web of lies that led to his wrongful imprisonment. Kimble’s innocence and strength of character are reestablished in multiple scenes throughout the film, and are integral to the fundamental qualities of the film.