He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.
By far the most successful movie star in the world at the time, Harrison Ford took a big swing with a 1985 film that has since emerged as a cult classic. The movie was a solid sleeper hit at the box office, having received excellent reviews and earned Ford a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars. It was, however, unlike the more populist entertainment that he was best known for. Now, more than four decades after its initial theatrical run, the movie in question has been added to the library of a free streaming platform.
The film was directed by Peter Weir, who broke out with the Australian psychological thriller Picnic at Hanging Rock, and went on to direct classics such as The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The film with Ford, however, was neither a fantasy fable nor a soaring action epic. It was a neo-noir mystery about a tortured detective protecting a young mother and her son amid a murder investigation in the Amish community.
The movie also featured a young Lukas Haas and Kelly McGillis, who, only a year later, would star alongside Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Interestingly, the action classic was also added to the same free streamer this month. Unlike Top Gun, however, the neo-noir mystery wasn’t a record-setting blockbuster. Instead, its trajectory at the box office was more gradual. That said, it went on to gross around $120 million worldwide against a reported budget of $12 million.
We’re talking, of course, about Witness. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture. It ended up winning in the Best Original Screenplay category. Witness now holds a “Certified Fresh” 91% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “A wonderfully entertaining thriller within an unusual setting, with Harrison Ford delivering a surprisingly emotive and sympathetic performance.”
Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble.
This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.
You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to,
because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room
without you ever having to mention it.
- Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the
backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left. - You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you
have never felt any real need to fix it for them. - The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the
moment he is not, and he never explains that part either. - You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal
person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two
things were in any tension.
- Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it,
which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything. - You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the
handful of people you actually care about. - Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep
getting sharper as the situation gets worse. - You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the
alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most
Western reason there has ever been.
- Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left
alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it. - You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who
is exposed rather than who is to blame. - These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the
person holding the line almost never gets thanked. - You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.
Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had
already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.
- Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through
argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw. - You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you
turn up exactly when you said you would. - True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen
and every adult around her has to catch up. - You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of
you.
Here’s Where You Can Watch ‘Witness’ for Free
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image Via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image Via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount Pictures
Image via Paramount PicturesAmong the film’s many fans is the legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. After his death, his daughter compiled a list of his 100 favorite movies for a book, and alongside the comedy classic Annie Hall, the sci-fi masterpiece Solaris, and the sweeping historical epic Lawrence of Arabia, the list also included Weir’s Witness. Weir is now retired, having made his final film — The Way Back — in 2010.
You can watch the neo-noir classic on Pluto TV this month, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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