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This is not an horrible movie but it's just one of those type of movies that is very formulaic and forgettable to watch.
The movie its weakest element is its writing. The story focuses more on the personal and relational aspects of the characters rather than on the actual thriller plot-line of the movie. The movie often becomes just uninteresting because of that. But on top of that, the actual thriller plot-line of the movie also isn't exactly anything renewing or spectacular. It's quite weak honestly, as mostly shows in the end.
It also doesn't feature exactly the most credible story. The two main characters in the movie, played by Mark Harmon and Sean Connery don't like each other from the start and they actually also share a long history of not liking each other but nevertheless they decide to team up with each other, without being forced to do so.
Not really the director's fault though. As a matter of fact, Peter Hyams is a quite underrated director. Yes OK so most of his latest works such as "A Sound of Thunder" is horrible but he also directed "Capricorn One", "2010" and "Sudden Death", which are all kind of underrated movies within their genre. It is unlikely though that he will ever make a movie like this again, since I don't think a lot of studios are still willing to give Peter Hyams a go with a big movie production, considering all of the box office bombs he directed the last couple of years. His latest movie that is currently in production, "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" will probably also not become a success I would suspect. Sure it stars Michael Douglas but lets also be honest here, Michael Douglas hasn't starred in anything decent ever since the 2000 movie "Traffic".
In this movie it's mostly notable that Peter Hayms started his directing career in the '70's. This movie features some very typical '70's thriller elements. Most notably are its chases. This movie features some real good chase sequences. Also some good old fashioned foot chases. You don't need fast cars, explosions and fancy editing to make a good chase sequence, as this movie shows. Sometimes I really miss some good old fashioned foot chases in most recent productions.
It's also of course nice that the movie features some good and well known actors but it's not like they can uplift the movie to a much higher level. The script is too simplistic, unoriginal and restrained for that. A waste of Sean Connery's and Meg Ryan's talent you could say. Funny thing is that Mark Harmon more or less later would play the same type of role in the hit-series "Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service".
The movie is basically one big waste of a potentially good and interesting concept but the story unfortunately picks some uninteresting approaches to it. The main concept gets for instance much better handled in the Columbo movie "Columbo: By Dawn's Early Light". Not that this movie is completely horrible, it's just so very standard and forgettable all.
5/10
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