Bird on a Wire
An FBI informant has kept his new identity secret for 15 years. Now an old flame has recognised him, and the bad guys are back for revenge.
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- Cast:
- Mel Gibson , Goldie Hawn , David Carradine , Bill Duke , Stephen Tobolowsky , Joan Severance , Harry Caesar
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What makes it different from others?
From my favorite movies..
Best movie ever!
A Disappointing Continuation
I remember that this movie hit the cinemas when I was about 17 so it is about ten years old. I never saw it though I remember that a couple of so called friends got me to lend me money to see it though I ended up not going with them. This is why this movie sticks in my mind. It wasn't really something that I wanted to see and now that I have watched it, I don't really think that it is really that much of a movie. When it was in the cinemas, the Greater Union cinema on Hindley Street was in two buildings, one on each side of the street. One must think that this movie isn't all that good because I am talking about the layout of Adelaide at the time that it was in the cinemas. The movie was average, it is just this is what the movie brings back to me.Goldie Hawn is an interesting actor, interesting that I don't actually think that she really suits many of the roles that she is cast it. Hawn is simply just too innocent. She seems to be a lot like my friend Mellissa, she is sweet looking and not really suitable for a woman who has been through divorces and bad husbands. If only she could act and even look more cynical and disillusioned she might suit the roles that she is cast in (okay I am talking about Foul Play and this movie). The role is not all that bad because the character is supposed to be sweet and innocent, dragged into the action that is beyond her, but her background just doesn't reflect the character. I would have had Hawn's character still sweet and innocent, and still mourning for the lover that she lost so long ago. Maybe she could be married but a divorce is just too messy and too emotionally destructive to create a sweet and innocent character.Bird on a Wire, that title just didn't really make much sense to me. That is probably why I thought the movie was simply average. Sure there were stunts, machine guns, explosions, but the title simply did not capture the essence of the movie. It was also a chase movie, where a couple are chased across America by evil government officials, which is reasonably clichéd. I think to make a good movie now we need to fall into the area in which our music is drifting: we need to turn away from the happy fantasy to the hopeless, empty, and bleak existence that life is. Homer Simpson says to the Smashing Pumpkins, "I thank you for your bleak music for you have stopped my children dreaming of a future I simply cannot provide." Our music is tearing down the fantasy world that we have put up before us, and I feel that this is where our movies need to go.Well, I have talked about this, and we must remember the time of the movie. Bird on a Wire was late eighties and the bleak world view was only just forming. Nirvana had appeared in the early nineties, about two to three years after this. Metallica had released And Justice For All, and Iron Maiden were singing Ballards while Guns and Roses were hard rock. This was a time that the world was beginning to collapse but the dream that was the eighties was still flowing. I was employed as an electronic technician and things were nice. It was a time when movies of hope and innocence existed, yet they still do, though I must see Armageddon to really see how movies of hope exist, while movies like City of Angels seem to suggest having to give something up to love.I still haven't talked about what Bird on a Wire entails, but I guess it is not really all that important. Simply it is a chase movie. A young man, Rick, flew over to Mexico to buy some cheap drugs but was caught by corrupt DEA officials who forced him to smuggle drugs back into the States only to get caught at a private airstrip. He testified and was put on witness protection but the DEA officer was recently released and is now after him. At the same time his ex-girlfriend, the one he left standing at the altar, sees him in Detroit and this thrusts them together. It is interesting but rather plain. I had more fun sorting out my photos.
I really don't feel like writing reviews especially when a movie is somewhere under average. But the unbelievably stupid acting really made me do that. I never really liked Goldie Hawn but in this movie I simply found her disgusting. Those screams, her being so foolish; I can't believe she can play this kind of garbage role.Maybe is the role, maybe is the actress, I simply found this movie disgusting. OK for Mel Gibson for an early dumb role; he is nearly funny from time to time but at least he doesn't become ridiculous.I wrote all these because never in my life have I felt such a disgust towards the female character.I advise you not to watch this movie.
Beats me why so many people want to trash this action-packed screwball romantic comedy-chase thriller. Instead of comparing it to other Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn films, I compare it to basically similar type films, such as "What's Up Doc?", "Smokey and the Bandit", "High Road to China", "The Big Steal"(perhaps the granddaddy of this type of film) and, more recently, some of the Jackie Chan films. The stunts have gotten much wilder and more numerous in recent decades, including in this film. I love both Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson as actors, and to have them together in this type of film is just great.Gibson gets things started with a scary practical joke on his coworker. Goldie, a divorced lawyer, happens to drive into the gas station where Gibson is working and thinks she recognizes her almost husband of 15 years ago. He seemingly convinces her she is mistaken, being embarrassed about the circumstances of his sudden disappearance. Goldie returns in the evening to spy on him from across the street. Apparently, she intended to follow his car home, but instead witnesses a confrontation with 2 men intent on killing him. The assailants accidentally kill his coworker. Gibson manages to burst out of the garage in a car, but it is soon wrecked. He sees Goldie and pleads that she let him in her car, acknowledging that he is who she thinks he is. As the station explodes in a fireball, they drive off in a hail of bullets, with a murder charge soon to be filed against them. They're off to the races! Sound promising?
Rick Jarmin is an easy going and goofy minded Detroit car mechanic. However a chance encounter with a woman named Marianne in his shop one night leads her to claim that she knows him. And she does - they are former lovers and Rick left her when he went under witness protection. Then they realize that someone wants Rick dead and Marianne as well. Cross country chase mayhem ensues.If two words describes this film, and two words can in fact describe this film, they are: thoroughly silly. Featuring a by the numbers plot with some shallow intrigue and a lead actress who just won't stop screaming. Every action scene she screams and screams while our manly hero guides them to safety from whoever is pursuing them. By the end of the film you may very well think that every covert agency in the world wants them dead.On the plus side, the action scenes are quite lively and inventive and prove to be the film's saving grace in terms of entertainment value. Though the final sequence lasts almost unbearably long and tries to outrun itself long before it's over. The rest of the film is a mediocre attempt at screwball comedy. --- 5/10Rated PG-13 for violence