I liked this movie so much when I was a teenager that I actually read the novelization. I had never heard the word “novelization,” of course. I assumed that I was reading the novel that the film was based on; the concept of taking an existing screenplay and turning it into a book seemed very strange to me when I figured out that had happened. Still does, in fact.
But the point is that I loved this movie. Part of that, of course, was that I was a teenager and Kelly McGillis had breasts that she didn't mind showing me (by far my clearest memory coming into this re-watch), but it went deeper than that. I suspect that, to me, the Amish represented my own family and their religion (we were not Amish, but were very strict and unworldly), and the City represented, you know, the real world. I was in the very early stages of suspecting that my family's religion might not be true, and more important might not suit me. There seemed to be things worth knowing that I wouldn't find in the Bible, and things worth experiencing that couldn't be had in church. Yet, those things you're taught when you're young have a hold on you; they're very hard to let go of. I felt like Harrison Ford was playing one side of my mind, and Kelly McGillis was playing the other side, right there on the screen, and the conflict between them really resonated in me. The debate has been handled better in other films and other media, of course, but I didn't know that then, and I found it fascinating.
McGillis plays Rachel Lapp, a recently-widowed Amish woman, who is traveling with her young son Samuel (Lukas Haas) from their farm somewhere in Pennsylvania to Baltimore by train. In Philadelphia they are delayed, and Samuel witnesses a murder in a public restroom. The victim is a cop named Zenovich (Timothy Carhart), and it turns out that the murderers are also cops (Danny Glover as McFee and Angus MacInnes as Fergie), involved in some straightforward movie corruption. John Book (Harrison Ford) is the officer investigating the murder, and when Samuel identifies McFee from a photograph in the police station Book informs his commander, Schaeffer (Joseph Sommer). Unfortunately, it turns out that Schaeffer is in on it too and sends McFee to kill Book. Book escapes but is wounded, takes Rachel and Samuel home, and then collapses after telling Rachel that she can't send him to a hospital, or Schaeffer will find him and come for the boy. So he has to stay on the farm, first to recover from the gunshot wound, and then to stay hidden, and this is where the conflict arises between the old world and the new.
I can't love the script for this movie. It was written by three television writers, and I think it shows. I get the impression that they wrote a few key scenes very carefully, which would have carried a TV show with a bit of hand-waving in between them. Then they found out that you can't do that in a film, it has to be twice as long, so they just painted-by-number to get us from one good bit to the next. The scene in the deli, where Rachel is telling Book what his sister thinks of him (“she thinks you like policing because you think you are right about everything and you're the only one who can do anything...”) is fun. The discussion between Samuel and his grandfather Eli (Jan Rubes) about the gun is really quite strong, and says more about the differences between our world and theirs than the rest of the movie put together.
But for the most part the script is pretty forgettable, and there are some very clunky moments, and a few that just leave me scratching my head. At one point Book and his partner grab a suspect out of a bar and pin him against the window of their car, screaming and swearing, for the boy inside to identify him. Of course Samuel was terrified and Rachel was justifiably outraged. Has any cop ever actually done that? It's not only stupid and presumably unethical, it's thoroughly out of character for Book.
The script is elevated somewhat by the key players. Ford is his usual self, gruff but likeable. Book isn't Indiana Jones or Han Solo, but he's smart, tough, and honest. He's a hero you feel good cheering for. McGillis is even better as Rachel; I think it's her best role (though she's done a lot of work I haven't seen), and she's the class of this movie. She and Ford have surprisingly good chemistry. Physically she suits the role, being simultaneously very beautiful and very plain, and she seems to get Rachel, who's a fairly well-drawn character. Although she's lived a sheltered life she is not naïve, and although she's modest she will not be pushed around. She's the wisest character in the film and she, and to a lesser extent Eli, don't allow the Amish to seem silly, which would have been very easy to do. Haas is about as good as you can expect a nine-year-old kid to be; I generally can't stand child actors, but he never annoys me, and the scene I mentioned before is as good as it is because he and Rubes play so well together. He's actually quite charming.
Unfortunately this is balanced out by getting little value from the bad guys. Again, they seem like TV villains; they have no depth, no memorable lines, no personality. Sommer is not terrible, but he's nothing special, and the film suffers from giving him most of the attention. MacInnes is better (and has a memorable death), but is a bit underused, and Glover is utterly wasted as McFee. He's such a commanding presence, and he has made a wonderful villain in other films, looming and threatening, but they just don't give him anything to do. This would have been a much better movie if Glover had been the main bad guy.
DOES IT HOLD UP?: No. In fact I'm afraid it's the least impressive movie I've seen on this project so far. The direction is competent but does nothing to distinguish itself. Peter Weir is a director I have no particular feeling for, but there are some nice shots, like the three crooked cops approaching the farm in the dawn, which was a fairly iconic image when I was a kid. As I mentioned, the acting and characterization are a mixed bag and the script is uneven, and the score...well, I'll talk about that in a moment. So all that's left is that old conflict. And the thing is, it no longer resonates with me. I'm no longer torn in two. I've completely abandoned the old faith and so, although I can appreciate the Amish characters and the choices they make, I don't really sympathize with them. I've come to realize that even when the Amish are right about certain things, they are right for the wrong reasons, so to me there's little tension left. Without it, the plot just can't keep me interested enough. Ford and McGillis make it worth watching, and since it's streaming on Netflix I'm sure I'll put it on now and then, but I won't buy it, and when Netflix stops streaming it I won't miss it much.
BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: McGillis gives the best performance, but I have to come back to that one scene between Eli and Samuel, where Eli is explaining why the gun is bad and Samuel is disagreeing with him. The film sides with neither, instead letting each make his point:
Samuel: I would only kill the bad man. Eli: Only the bad man. I see. And you know these bad men by sight? You are able to look into their hearts and see this badness? Samuel: I can see what they do. I have seen it. Eli: And having seen you become one of them? Don't you understand? What you take into your hands, you take into your heart.WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: The score. I know I just complained about the music in Educating Rita, but that was nothing like this bad. This was composed by Maurice Jarre, who did some very good work over a long career, but goodness gracious, he's toxic here. It's just soooo Eighties, such a thin and screeching Vangelis knockoff. There are a very few well-written passages in it, but an awful lot of bad ones, and even the bits that are well-written are played with this reedy synth sound that's hard to bear. The film mostly gets by without background music, but when it kicks in it's pretty bad, and also incredibly intrusive. You can't tune it out. It's ridiculous how loud it is. The barn-raising scene, I actually had to mute the TV. I just couldn't take it. In fact, I would say that with a better score this would have had seven stars; it's rare that a score can cost a whole point, but this one's atrocious. If there's much more of this, I'm gonna swear off the Eighties altogether. SCORE: 6/10. It's a solid film with two good leads, but it's nothing special.
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