BIRD ON A WIRE
[Probable Spoilers]
Reviewer: Jaye Mathisen
Copyright 1990 Jaye Mathisen
Summary:
A person in the witness protection program, runs
into some baddies and the girl he almost married.
Crashes, guns, and a few laughs round out the
score.
Mel Gibson is Richard Jarmine, a guy who testified against a couple of corrupt DEA agents, and was rewarded by being placed in the Federal Witness Protection program. Goldie Hawn plays a lawyer (Marianne Graves) who runs into Richard at a Gas Station. The last time she's seen him is 15 years ago when he left her at the altar. In fact, when she gets gas at a station that he's working at,she's not sure it's him.
Prior to all the above events, a bad dude (David Carradine) -- one of the DEA people that Rick sent to prison -- has just been released, and needs to wipe Rick out both on general principles, and because Rick hasn't testified against the bad dude's partner, another bad dude.
These bad dudes hunt Rick down, and attempt to kill him. In the meantime, Marianne has gone back to the place where Rick works to see if it really is him, and notices the bad dudes attempting to turn Rick into dog food. Some excitement later, Rick and Marianne are now together, and Rick needs Marianne to help him find his contact at the FBI to relocate him, but that person appears to have retired, and the FBI doesn't have any record of Rick now. (This is because another bad FBI dude has wiped out Ricks records for reasons that never were explained).
The rest of the movie is guns, babes (Rachel Varney -- played by some playmate), motorcycles, hairdressers, bad dudes, and wild animals. Rick and Marianne constantly leap from the frying pan and into the fire. The final fire is at a zoo where Rick used to work, and he uses his rapport with animals and a lot of luck to smoke all the bad dudes.
The number of chases/crashes/exciting events is quite long, and fun to watch. However, after LETHAL WEAPON 1 & 2, it's very difficult to watch Mel not being a kick-butt kind of guy. I suppose it was an attempt to show that clever is better than brawn, but I think the latter is more fun to watch.
In the end, Rick and Marianne emerge victorious and in love, and live happily ever after....
Rating: If I was going to be picky, BIRD ON A WIRE doesn't have a lot going for it. The plot doesn't really develop (why was the FBI guy that wiped out Ricks file involved with the other bad dudes), and I'm not sure why they bothered to mention that Marianne is a lawyer. I don't recall hearing her spout any legalese, unless the point was to show that she's rich. There were other gripes, and holes, but it certainly wasn't the worst. So it rates 2 stars (**,average) on the 1 to 4 star scale.
Enjoyability Rating: Disregarding the above, the film is pretty good. I enjoyed it very much, Mel's a stud, Goldie's a babe, and there was enough action/comedy/adventure that even if you noticed the holes in the plot, you were too caught up in what was going on to pay much attention. Make no mistake, the film hauls butt. I'd recommend it to my friends, and maybe even see it again, so it gets a 3 stars out of 4 for enjoyment.
-- Jaye Mathisen,systems manager Internet: icsu6000@caesar.cs.montana.edu 410 Roberts Hall BITNET: icsu6000@mtsunix1.bitnet Dept. of Computer Science Montana State University PHONE: (406) 994-{4780,3931} Bozeman MT 59717
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