The Fugitive

I remember the ballyhoo the Hindi remake (not authorised or authentic, I am sure) of the film created at the time of its release 1994. The film starred Southern superstar Nagarjuna and Manisha Koirala. It kick-started music director M M Kreem’s career, with the song ‘Tu Mile, Dil Khile’ still being a staple of so many playlists; it’s another thing that the aforementioned career never really took off. Just before the film, called Criminal released, the Bhatts (yes, Bhatts, who else) ran an ad in the newspapers, that too in the front page, saying that Manisha Koirala is murdered (which of course, she is, in the film.)

And the nation was in a frenzy.

The filmmakers apologised later, but the film bombed anyway.

The original, The Fugitive (1993) on the other hand, was super hit. Roger Ebert gave it four star, his maximum, and called it a classic thriller. And it’s a classic thriller in a way. Once it starts, it never quite lets you go till the last frame. And the cat-and-mouse set-pieces between Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones are just awesome, especially the one involving the tunnels leading to a gushing dam. This was the only sequence I remembered about the film I had seen when it was released, till I saw it again yesterday.