Narrow Margin - 12 hours of fear

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Movie
German title Narrow Margin - 12 hours of fear
Original title Narrow margin
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1990
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Peter Hyams
script Martin Goldsmith ,
Jack Leonard ,
Earl Felton ,
Peter Hyams
production Mario Kassar ,
Andrew G. Vajna ,
Jonathan A. Zimbert
music Bruce Broughton
camera Peter Hyams
cut Beau Barthel ,
James Mitchell
occupation

Narrow Margin - 12 hours of fear (original title Narrow Margin ) is an American action film from 1990 . The Director led Peter Hyams , the writer wrote Martin Goldsmith , Jack Leonard , Earl Felton and Peter Hyams. The main roles were played by Gene Hackman and Anne Archer .

The film is a remake of A Hair's Width by Richard Fleischer from 1952 .

action

Single Carol Hunnicut lets friends persuade her to go on a blind date with yuppie Michael Tarlow in Los Angeles . The two go to a hotel room. While Carol is freshening up in the bathroom, Tarlow receives an unexpected visit from his boss, the mafioso Leo Watts and his henchman. Tarlow has made money in his own pocket with Watts, which is why the gangster has him shot by his companion. Carol witnesses the murder and therefore goes into hiding.

The prosecutor responsible for the criminal case against Leo Watts, Robert Caulfield, has his friend and police colleague Dominick Benti Carol investigated and finds her in a lonely holiday home in the Canadian Rockies , which belongs to Hunnicut's brother. When Caulfield tries to get Carol to testify against Watts, an attack is carried out on the house by means of an armed helicopter, in which Benti is killed. Caulfield and Carol save themselves in their SUV and flee from the assassins to a small train station in the wilderness.

In response to the claim that Carol is pregnant and needs to be able to lie down, an elderly couple gives them the tickets for a separate compartment on the train to Vancouver , where Caulfield wants to bring Carol to safety. But Watts' murder squad, led by the unscrupulous killer Nelson, boarded the train. In the confines of the wagons, Caulfield and Carol struggle to hide from the killers. You have to switch compartments several times to avoid being found. Caulfield finds allies in a corpulent security officer of the railway company and the mysterious Kathryn Weller and can thus protect Carol from further attacks. In addition, after escaping an ambush, it dawns on the prosecutor that Watts has a mole on the side of the judiciary .

In the meantime, Nelson Caulfield offers to extradite Carol in exchange for a bribe, but the lawyer gratefully refuses. The killers then begin to chase Caulfield and his charge through the train. A little later, Caulfield and Carol find the security guard dead. This leaves them only to escape to the roof, where the lawyer can first throw one and then the other killer off the train after grueling fighting. When the danger seems averted, Kathryn suddenly appears on the roof. She also works for Watts and wants to shoot Carol, but is hit by a tunnel wall, standing on the train roof against the direction of travel.

The threat is averted and Caulfield can safely summon Carol to court, where she successfully testifies against Leo Watts. Caulfield also exposes the mole - it's a colleague he'd called earlier and asked for reinforcements: the other assistant prosecutor, Daalberg.

Reviews

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on September 21, 1990 that the plot was "idiotic". He also mocked the logical weaknesses of the film; Among other things, he asked why a pregnant woman should take a train instead of going to the hospital.

Hal Hinson wrote in the Washington Post on September 21, 1990 that no one plays simple men better than Gene Hackman. Without him the film would be “nothing”, with him it would be almost nothing. He praised Anne Archer, who, however, had too "a thin" role to show her talent. The film seems impersonal.

film-dienst 5/1991: “In the abundance of overloaded Hollywood films of today, burdened with complicated psychology, the return to the elementary components of a thriller seems almost a virtue. Although Hyams left out the most striking punch line from the old film, the film keeps the viewer in suspense. He does without almost everything that today's filmmakers otherwise consider essential: brutal actions, inevitable intimacies and lavishly displayed tricks. "

background

At the time the film was made (late 1980s), cell phones were hardly widespread and are not yet featured in this thriller. It was therefore plausible for the moviegoers of the time that the lawyer had no way of calling for help, either in the lonely mountain hut or on board the train. When he reached for a telephone receiver while stopping at a train station, the cable was cut - Leo Watts' henchmen were faster.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger Ebert: Narrow Margin. September 21, 1990, accessed July 10, 2006 .
  2. ↑ Hal Hinson: Narrow Margin. Film review in Washington Post, September 21, 1990, accessed July 10, 2006 .