No Place To Hide (1993)

Absolutely amazing

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Hey, folks, here's a blast from the past..."No Place To Hide" By Richard Harrington Washington Post Staff Writer April 19, 1993"No Place to Hide" is so bad it's not even any good. No guilty pleasures are to be found in its preposterously clumsy plot, or in the limp performance of Kris Kristofferson (someone check his pulse). Even Drew Barrymore regresses from the promise of "Guncrazy" by being forced to play a petulant 14-year-old caught up in a web of murder and intrigue. For both actors, this film is a triumph of underachievement.Barrymore plays Tinsel Hanley, whose ballerina sister Pamela (the always alluring Lydie Denier) has just become a backstage corpse de ballet during her dance company's rehearsal ("Swan Lake" or "Swan Song"?). The case falls into the lap of Detective Joe Garvey (the laconic Kristofferson, whose acting range is measured between squinting eyes and a grinding jaw). Looking for clues, Garvey comes across Tinsel: a petulant, selfish brat, who's now a target for an unknown attacker (who looks and acts suspiciously like The Shadow).Garvey is still suffering from the loss of his wife and daughter, several years earlier, to a drunk driver; the daughter, if still alive, would be about Tinsel's age. Do we detect a budding emotional subtext? Indeed, Garvey and Tinsel (both furiously resisting attachment) gradually develop a bond excruciatingly detailed in Tinsel's voiced-over diary entries. It's all very embarrassing, as is O.J. Simpson's wheelchair cameo (perhaps he was between takes on "The Naked Gun").Director Richard Danus, who beats his own script to a pulp, has no idea where to take any of this -- loose plot threads abound -- and the inevitable revelation of a secret society run by Dirty Harry elitists is simply ridiculous (if ever a film needed a satanic subplot, it's this one).In any number of confrontations, Kristofferson tells Barrymore to "Run, run!" and "Get out of here!" Take those as subliminal messages.

An adult film -- only those who have experienced what it might be like to lose one's family to the carelessness of a drunk driver might find a certain resonance with Kris Kristofferson's superb portrait of an embittered yet vulnerable detective. A version of the "I've got to put my life back together" story, the film comes perilously close to focusing too much on Drew Barrymore's teenage angst -- her rebellion against authority is not simply the typical teenager's, nor merely the result of being spoiled, as Kristofferson's detective finds out when she begins to cling to him out of real need. As a potential victim of the mysterious group that killed her sister, she needs protection; but as the discarded and abandoned orphan she has become, she needs the love and care of the father she never had. A film to be watched for intense and subtle performances by the two leads, and as well, for OJ Simpson's final film role as Kristofferson's physically disabled pal - a nice counterpart to to the emotionally crippled Barrymore-Kristofferson duo.

Disgruntled cop Kris Kristofferson (looking good sans beard and mustache) protects a sassy teenage girl (Drew Barrymore) from the killers who just did away with her sister, a professional ballerina who was killed during a performance. Barrymore's character (named "Tinsel"!) is tough to take, with lots of whiny outbursts and tantrums, but Kristofferson is decent and supporting players Martin Landau, Dey Young and O.J. Simpson are each very good. The slim production values render this a B-movie (maybe even a C-movie), but it isn't terrible. Richard Danus wrote and directed, and while the shabby-looking picture doesn't exactly showcase a hot, promising new talent, at least he gets the job done. ** from ****

Here we have an example of the sort of movie for which the terms 'run of the mill' and 'formulatic' were invented. I'd believe this was made for TV if not for some nudity at the very beginning, but I can't imagine that it was released in theaters. My guess would be it went straight to video, especially as it was shot at the very beginning of Drew Barrymore's comeback and stars Kris Kristofferson. She is Tinsel, a 14-year-old who the cop played by Kristofferson must protect. Her ballerina sister was murdered, and it looks like she's next. I sort of enjoyed the beginning of the movie, as Tinsel shows some admirable spunk and self-reliance, but it veers quickly into soppy searching-for-family bunk as it is revealed that the cop's wife and daughter were killed in a car accident and the ballerina was Tinsel's last living relative. So of course neither of them has anyone and they bond, culminating in a scene sure to set just about anyone's eyes rolling. There's also some weird, boring, sort-of subplot about the police chief's involvement with some elitist secret society. It's supposed to be a testament to the great humanity of Kristofferson's cop, but the only thing this flick is a testament to is how far Drew Barrymore had fallen, and how far she has come.