13 Things About U.S. MARSHALS

 by Adam Riske

Random thoughts about a movie that meant a lot to me in 1998.

• Kate Nelligan is in this as Gerard’s (Tommy Lee Jones) boss. It’s not Hall of Fame Nelligan like Frankie & Johnny or Wolf, but any Nelligan is good Nelligan.

• As a sequel to The Fugitive, this movie is middling at best. As a stand-alone action movie, it fares better. I’ll give the movie credit for being muscular, unpretentious and try-hard but it never really takes off like the original.

• I went to see U.S. Marshals in theaters twice. The second time was at the dollar theater. There’s an early establishing shot of Chicago where you see the skyline from what looks like a helicopter shot flying over Lake Michigan. I remember someone in the theater said aloud “Our beautiful city” and it’s annoyed me so much that I remembered it 27 years later while I write this column. Like, you might think that, but do you need to say it out loud?

• This movie made me briefly want to be a U.S. Marshal for a career. I even went to the Business Placement Office at my high school to learn more about it. My Dad said I couldn’t be a U.S. Marshal, and I was 15 so I said “Alright” and never thought about it as a profession since. It should be also noted that Wesley Snipes wears a bucket hat in one scene of this movie and I went out and bought a similar looking bucket hat and wore it several times in 1998.

• Wesley Snipes does a respectable job replacing Harrison Ford as the innocent man on the run. The script doesn’t do him any favors (we’ll get to that) but it’s not his fault. He also looks great running.

• The biggest pleasure of U.S. Marshals is Tommy Lee Jones in his element as Deputy Gerard. It’s his default screen persona as the hard barking lawman, but what’s impressive is it’s not SNL sketch acting. Each scene and choice have layers of characterization. It’s the best kind of blockbuster acting where the performer makes their character three-dimensional but not in a way that draws too much attention to the performance at the detriment of the movie. Plus, there’s nobody better at acting the move of sweeping a room to check it for suspects. He also has a solid looking run.

• Robert Downey Jr. is kind of ridiculous in this movie as the (SPOILER) secret bad guy. He seems irritated to be in the movie (which, according to internet research, was very much the case) and he has a stupid talking killer explanation at the end that feels like a Ghostface reveal in one of the Scream movies. It’s funny when he gets (SPOILER) shot at the end because he does a combination spin move-” oh” face-sleepy time transition that feels contemptuous on some level. He has a funny run. There’s a lot of build-up and he makes a gritty running face.

• Snipes is betrayed by the screenplay of this movie. First, he must walk in Harrison Ford’s footsteps because the movie unwisely chooses the innocent man route again instead of just making the fugitive guilty. The mystery of this film is boring having to do with rogue black ops agents and shadow conspiracies. It takes away the appeal of the first movie, where the fugitive was more of an everyman. U.S. Marshals is like if The Fugitive had the screenplay of a lower-wrung Snipes programmer like The Art of War. It’s a bad blend.

• U.S. Marshals annoyingly repeats beats from the first movie probably out of risk aversion to being too much of its own thing. This includes a crash sequence escape, a bumbling sheriff Gerard can put down, a getaway by jumping from a high structure (a building in this case instead of a dam). Once you start noticing this, it’s hard to ignore.

• I still like the ensemble of U.S. Marshals that carries over from the first movie, including supporting parts from Joe Pantoliano, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Daniel Roebuck. The team has a loose chemistry that’s fun and you care about them and Tommy Lee Jones by association. You like Gerard in part because they like Gerard. The death of Newman (Tom Wood) in U.S. Marshals is upsetting. It’s a sad arc when you add his development from the original to the sequel into the mix. You didn’t have to kill that boy, Downey Jr.! NEWMAN!! It plays more like Ricky in Boyz n the Hood that I would have expected.

• People in this movie won’t stop saying “The Chinese Consulate.” It must be said over a dozen times and each time with about 15% more pizazz than the other words said by the film’s actors.

• U.S Marshals was directed by longtime editor Stuart Baird. It was the second of three features he directed and probably the second best of them all after Executive Decision which I’d put slightly above U.S. Marshals. Both movies are much better than his third feature - Star Trek: Nemesis - which, for my money, is the worst Star Trek movie out of all of them. Since then, it appears Baird has gone back mostly to editing, often collaborating with director Martin Campell.

• U.S. Marshals was nominated for one award in 1998: Favorite Duo in an Action/Adventure for Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes. They correctly lost to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker for Rush Hour. Also nominated were Mel Gibson and Danny Glover for Lethal Weapon 4. This award didn’t need to exist imho especially because there’s no Favorite Duo award for any other genre besides Action/Adventure.

Happy F This Movie Fest week everyone!