Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

U.S. Marshals Blu-ray Movie Review

"I Don't Care!" Yes You Do.

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 4, 2012

More a spinoff than a sequel to the 1993 hit The Fugitive, 1998's U.S. Marshals is a tribute to a great actor's ability to fill out a supporting role with such conviction that the lawman pursuing Richard Kimble became as much a star of the film as the fugitive he was chasing. Tommy Lee Jones won the supporting actor Oscar by transforming the character of U.S. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard into a complex and memorable individual that audiences loved, probably because it's comforting to imagine society being protected by people of such talent, determination and morality. On the page, Gerard was a plot function, much as he had been in the original TV series. Jones built an entire character out of the seemingly simple notion of an individual engaged in a "relentless pursuit" and "obsessed" with the capture of an escaped prisoner (to borrow phrases from the famous narration that opened each TV episode). Every time I watch The Fugitive, I notice some additional gesture or facial expression that Jones layered into his performance to express not only Gerard's intense focus, but also the restless intelligence behind it.

U.S. Marshals put Gerard front and center and surrounded him with most of the same deputies who served as effective foils in The Fugitive; the only new face is LaTanya Richardson, whose Deputy Cooper replaces L. Scott Caldwell's Deputy Poole—and does so effectively. Once again, Gerard and his team have to hunt down an escaped federal fugitive who proves to be more resourceful than your average detainee. The main reason why U.S. Marshals is a lesser film (and performed well below its predecessor at the box office) is that it's hard to craft a chase scenario with the elegant simplicity of Richard Kimble's search for the one-armed man. For U.S. Marshals, screenwriter John Pogue turned to the world of espionage, where plots, hidden agendas and double-crosses are all too familiar. Pogue's fugitive, a former covert operative, would have been equally at home in the world of 24, John le Carré or even James Bond. Because such a character is so familiar in the movies (though not in real life), he can't be endowed with the everyman quality that made Harrison Ford's Kimble so compelling. Kimble may have been a wealthy and successful surgeon, but he was still a guy who got up, kissed his wife goodbye and went to work; when crime and violence burst into his life, it was a shocking and unexpected intrusion. By contrast, the fugitive in U.S. Marshals has lived "off the grid" and outside society's norms for much of his adult life. His quest to clear his name feels more like a routine spy thriller than a personal tragedy.

The film opens with grainy surveillance video of a parking garage in New York where two men are killed. The exact circumstance are revealed (and misrepresented) throughout the film's running time, but the incident drives the story. A few days later, police in Chicago arrest a tow truck driver named Mark Warren (Wesley Snipes), after his truck is involved in a spectacular crash caused by a driver talking on a cell phone. While Warren is being treated at the hospital, where his girlfriend, Marie (Irène Jacob, familiar to viewers of Red), is waiting to pick him up, a fingerprint check reveals that he's Mark Roberts, who is wanted in connection with the New York parking garage murders.

Meanwhile, Chief Deputy Marshal Gerard (Jones) and his assistant deputies—Cosmo Renfro (Joe Pantoliano), Noah Newman (Tom Wood), Bobby Biggs (Daniel Roebuck) and Savannah Cooper (Richardson)—are arresting a pair of street toughs after patiently staking out the apartment of their girlfriends. (Gerard's disguise for the stakeout is a chicken costume, which director Stuart Baird says on the commentary was his own idea to make the scene more interesting.) The bust turns violent, and a prisoner makes a public stink about his injuries. As a PR maneuver, Gerard's boss (and old flame), Catherine Walsh (Kate Nelligan) orders him to accompany the arrestees on their plane flight to a Tennessee prison, where Gerard will make a contrite statement to the press.

Unfortunately for Gerard and everyone else, Warren/Roberts is being transported on the same plane. An incident in mid-flight downs the aircraft (spectacularly), and when the bodies, living and dead, are counted up, Mark Whatever-His-Name-Might-Be is gone. It's time to summon Gerard's team and get to work.

Mark (whose real name is neither Warren nor Roberts) leads them on a lively chase through swamps, along interstates and eventually back to New York, where he hopes to find the truth and exonerate himself. In the process, Gerard and crew circle back to Chicago to locate Marie, who seems less disturbed upon learning her boyfriend is a covert operative than by the allegation that he killed two people. For Gerard, the most annoying element of the case is the new associate he's been forced to include, a State Department diplomatic security agent named Royce (Robert Downey, Jr.), who seems to have a personal stake in the chase (since he was friends with the two murder victims), has no experience in fugitive apprehensions, carries a "nickel-plated sissy pistol" (or so says Gerard) and clearly isn't sharing everything he knows.

Director Baird, whose previous film was the terrorist thriller Executive Decision (1996), stages some first-rate action scenes, including the plane crash previously mentioned, a tense shootout in a cemetery, a deadly pursuit through the corridors of a retirement home and a punchout in the hold of a cargo ship. Snipes has sufficient screen presence to make Warren into a worthy opponent, even though the story never allows him the innately righteous cause of Richard Kimble (or the sympathetic position of Harrison Ford). Gerard's cantankerous banter with his deputies remains entertaining even when it acquires a sharp edge, as it often threatened to do with Pantoliano's Cosmo in The Fugitive, which here spills over into outright rancor. In this film, the stakes for the team itself are much higher.

U.S. Marshals Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

U.S. Marshals was shot by Andrzej Bartkowiak, who became a favorite for action pictures after his work on Speed (1994). Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray vividly converys Bartkowiak's trademark style, with its rich but understated colors and almost tactile textures. Detail is well-rendered throughout; you can see every crease and crag in Tommy Lee Jones's face, which can go from stern to mock-playful in an instant. During the elaborate stunt and model sequences (the film was made just before CGI had largely supplanted realism in action films), the degree of visible detail adds dramatically to their impact. The same is true for the tense, extended sequence in the Tennessee swamp, where all the leaves, aquatic vegetation, mud and muck are plainly visible and make the characters' discomfort feel quite real.

Blacks are deep and solid, which is essential to such scenes as the aftermath of the plane crash. Colors are rich without being oversaturated. There was no indication of artificial sharpening, high frequency filtering or compression artifacts, and the only flaw I spotted was an occasional minor instance of aliasing on very fine cross-hatch patterns. (I'm particularly sensitive to this kind of flaw; others may not even notice it.) The film itself may not be anyone's idea of eye candy, but the transfer from Warner is top notch.

U.S. Marshals Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

From the moment the snowy surveillance footage flashes on the screen at the beginning, you know that the soundtrack of U.S. Marshals won't be ordinary. The events on the tape are pumped up and echo through the surrounds in a manner that no surveillance system ever managed. All of the major action sequences fully engage the rear speakers and the sub, and they do so at full volume, driven by the Blu-ray's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Mark "Warren's" tow truck crash is sickeningly bone-crunching. The decompression and crash landing of the prison plane are filled with shocking sounds that no air travel passenger ever wants to hear (and, as catastrophes keep piling on top of each other, the sound gets more frightening). The cemetery shooting is a symphony of mayhem, as bullets whiz by and hit various objects and people. Scenes in downtown New York (many of them shot in Chicago) also contribute to the sonic experience, with the ever-present traffic noise, which is a running joke, since Gerard's guys keep getting stuck in traffic.

Dialogue is almost always clear, except when it's getting drowned out by something else. The score by the late Jerry Goldsmith does a great job of latching onto elements from James Newton Howard's score for The Fugitive and developing them into something that is distinctive for this film, while remaining sonically connected to the one that inspired it.

U.S. Marshals Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from the 1998 Warner DVD. Omitted are three TV spots, a trailer for The Fugitive and a behind-the-scenes essay.

• Commentary by Director Stuart Baird: Baird's commentary is dry, sparse and contains lengthy pauses (and when I say "lengthy", I mean as much as half an hour). He sometimes provides interesting information (e.g., how to simulate the Wall Street area in downtown Chicago), but more often than not he states the obvious (e.g., Tommy Lee Jones is a powerful screen presence—really?).


• Anatomy of the Plane Crash (SD; 1.78:1, enhanced; 12:44): A step-by-step breakdown of how the crash sequence was achieved, presented in multiple short featurettes with a "play all" function.
• The Crash: A Five-Act Play
• Model Airplanes
• Exterior Sets
• Interior Sets
• Landing Locations
• Escape Under Water
• Crash Research
• Miniature Road
• Crash for Crash: "U.S. Marshals" vs. "The Fugitive"


• Justice Under the Star (SD; 1.33:1; 18:27): A history of the U.S. Marshal's Service, both in reality and in the movies. It's followed by trailers for Cahill U.S. Marshal and the Lawrence Kasdan film of Wyatt Earp.


• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:29)

U.S. Marshals Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

U.S. Marshals isn't a classic, as The Fugitive is and probably will remain. But it's well-made, entertaining and features a great performance by Tommy Lee Jones and equally good supporting work from almost everyone else. (The exception is Downey, whose talents weren't well-suited to the role of a button-down government functionary. He later said in an interview that he hated working on the film.) As derivative as the plot may be, it's coherent and carefully thought through, which is more than one can say for many thrillers today. The Blu-ray is technically superior and highly recommended.