Trapped on a train with a pair of killers on his tail, can deputy DA Robert Caulfield (Gene Hackman) keep his witness Carol Hunnicut (Anne Archer) alive?
It has been a minute since I reviewed a Peter Hyams joint.
This movie is not as good as the original. Its additions only draw attention to how good the original is.
But on its own terms, Narrow Margin 90 is fun.
Part of the appeal is aesthetic - I love the look of thrillers from this period.
Another related factor is the cast.
Gene Hackman is so good at playing a prick, and he is well cast as Caulfield. The character is not that nuanced - he is so tenacious he rubs the brass the wrong way, and blown any chance of promotion.
Hackman makes for a worthy stand-in for Charles McGraw, although I wish he got something more developed and unique to play (but more on that later).
Anne Archer is given some meat as the witness. We open the movie with the sequence of her witnessing the murder that gets the plot going.
Unlike the original, she is playing an ordinary woman who finds her escape plan sabotaged by Hackman’s over-eager bloodhound.
Frankly the film teases a more suspenseful and unique take on the film’s premise.
In the original, part of the suspense comes from Brown trying to keep up appearances for the sake of the passengers.
If the film had been centred around Archer, and her attempts to avoid the killers AND overcome Hackman’s blundering, this film might have stood on its own.
To the film’s credit, it tries to make this failure key to Hackman’s character, but it does not carry through in the way that the filmmakers intended.
The rest of the cast are good: Alexander Sikking is solid as the smooth-talking mouthpiece of the killer duo.
The film is also notable for being the only movie to feature both JT and Emmet T Walsh. Both are great character actors (no blood relation) and they add some unique flavour to rote supporting roles.
The third act turns into an action thriller, with our heroes trying to hide on top of the speeding train - the sequence benefits from a lack of process shots.
Hackman, Archer and Sikking are really on top of the train, in both close-ups and wide shots.
In a film that lacks a lot of original ideas, this sequence gives the movie a jolt of energy.
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