Narrow Margin (1990)

One of my all time favorites.

Disturbing yet enthralling

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The minute Gene Hackman entered the picture, this was a totally different movie. The murder had to take place, and we had to see the setup that led to it. But this turned into what seemed like an episode of a humorous TV murder mystery. Hackman did a great job and gave us plenty of laughs, even though this wasn't a comedy. Once he and Anne Archer's reluctant witness got together, it was almost a romantic comedy with two mismatched partners. And the action just kept on coming. Along with the two fine performances of the leads, we had plenty of memorable characters. J.A. Preston's demanding district attorney, Emmet Walsh's edgy detective (who didn't stay around long, which was a shame), and an older man who gave up his suite so Caulfield and his "pregnant" wife could have their privacy. Doogie Howser's father did a great job as the main bad guy. And the woman whose name I don't remember who hoped for a romantic relationship with Caulfield.We were always on edge as we wondered what would happen next. And there was the real excitement of action on top of the train cars. And beautiful scenery in western Canada.I mentioned Hackman's comic abilities, but he did an amazing dramatic performance in one scene as he made it clear why he was going to so much trouble to make sure the bad guys got justice, if they could. There are so many moral dilemmas.It was a worthy effort.

This film was almost constantly annoying. The main character, supposedly an ex-Marine, manages to get his hands on actual guns several times, which might well have evened up the odds a little in his attempts to escape the assassins sent to kill his charge, so of course the screenwriter inserted bits of business each time to let the "hero" screw it up. He loses one gun whilst he stops to preen himself in a mirror, t'other whilst he tosses off a quip evidently meant to display the screenwriter's facility with Bondish repartee, and is so stuck on himself that he fails to notice when the obvious decoy on the train makes goo-goo eyes at him, ignoring countless real hunks in the process, and so sets up the mandatory denouement in which the decoy (quelle surprise!) acts out the perfect "villain taunting the hero" scene and is vanquished mid-taunt, whilst Bond... pardon... one or another of the Marx Brothers, utters the perfect quip, which in real life would have allowed the decoy to escape and kill both witness and the main character, but of course it doesn't, since the screenwriter couldn't let that happen, so it didn't, but only through brute force, wrestling a happy ending out of a bloody mash-up.I don't mind a little suspension of disbelief, but I prefer honest slapstick to whatever the heck this was.

Much has been made here of the fact that this is yet another remake of a film widely considered to be a classic. On the whole I am not sympathetic to remakes of even non-classics simply because most of the films that inspire fond memories reflected that period in which they were made - how would Laura or Ninotchka for example look if remade today - and it is totally impossible to replicate 'feel'. On the face of it this remake is absurd: The black-and-white original made a virtue of necessity; it was a 'B' picture with a 'B' budget so Fleisher shot it all in a confined space and juggled the camera angles to great effect. The woman (Marie Windsor) was the wife of the gangster and hard as nails, not, as here, a more or less innocent bystander who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. By opening it out, creating a whole new exposition about the blind date we just lose valuable time that could have been concentrated - as in the original version - on the claustrophobic laced with danger train journey. The remake is not without the odd thrill but if both versions are freely available I can't see anyone settling for the remake.

It's good as average thriller from the 1980s, but it allowed some nasty questions to hang around in your brain such as : what could've happened to such a picture with another director who wasn't once a respected director of photography like (Peter Hyams) ?!, or if the same script had been given to (James Cameron) or (John McTiernan) ? Actually they might've exploded everything to reach the most extreme limit by making one critical climax after another !Maybe what allowed those questions is the style of the movie itself altogether. Yes, it's a low tune, low budget kind of movie. But, it's nice one. In fact, the problem is mainly in us. We want all the movies to be just one movie (the most successful one in our time) and it's impossible not because the history doesn't repeat itself only, but because that would distort all the movies also ! Here it's fair without any crazy Action or CGI's companionship, and It's great to see (Gene Hackman) in anything. True that this rule has some exceptions, but this movie is not one of them. I think this time I have just the screenwriter to blame not to utilize some parts to make it more hot and perhaps that's the reason why this movie seemed more like a TV production or as one had been made by the 1950s' standards. It's not big, not loud, though not bad. So try to think of it as a clever intermission between (Rambo) and (Die Hard), or as a peaceful version of (The Gauntlet) however in a train, or as a solid old fashion kind of thriller.