Film commentary & review

HARRISON FORD’S GREATEST ROLES.

As a child, growing up in Santizzle, Ca (San Diego, County) movies always became a way of escape for me, and to this day, whether writing about them, watching them or making them (of which I don’t do enough due to undiagnosed ADD and the life excuse lazy train), movies have always been a part of my life.

Harrison Ford for a long time, was my man. The epitome of the action hero, bad mofo. Seeing Star Wars for the first time and entering Han Solo in the Cantina left an indelible impression on me. I remember playing on the playground as a 7 year, pretending to be Han Solo.

I recently saw INDY 4 (Crystal Skull) and was astonished at how Harrison has quite frankly, gotten older. Like I haven’t ? It seems like yesterday when Rick Deckard was chasing replicants through a cyber punk Los Angeles or even better, running from a giant boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Harrison was a little boys hero, a mans man. As I grew older, I strayed from these roles and preferred him in more serious faire like Witness. I recall being very satisfied at the age of 14 when he played Detective John Booker in the film. I craved roles with more meat, and he delivered.

Here, is my Top 10 Roles Harrison Ford has portrayed. They might not be the best films he has done, but for me, they are the most memorable. Whether as seen through a child’s eyes or a mans eyes, Harrison Ford has kept my dreams in tact going on 30 years, as a film goer and as a filmmaker.

10. Martin Stett - The Conversation

The 1974 Academy Award nominated thriller audio surveillance, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Teri Garr, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, and an uncredited appearance from Robert Duvall.

Any film that deals with a voyeuristic theme (Antonioni’s Blowup, De Palma’s Blow Out and Body Double, Hitch’s Rear Window) always lands amongst a favorite of mine. This film is deliberately paced as we follow and listen to a young couple only to come to a shocking truthful ending. For it’s time, it was a landmark. Hailed by critics and recipient of the Palme D’or (The first of Coppola’s two he would receive, the other being Apocalypse Now).

Ford plays Martin Stett, the homosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that) assistant to Robert Duvall, the man who hires Hackman to surveille the young couple. Even though I’ve seen the film a dozen times, I always expect Ford to jump on Hackman’s character and beat him to death. He plays it just too quiet and reserved, but with a sense of threat that looms over each scene. Passive aggressive to the Nth degree.

9. Rusty Sabich - Presumed Innocent

1990’s Presumed Innocent was a film adaptation of a best-selling novel by Scott Turow, which tells the story of a prosecutor charged with the murder of his female colleague and mistress. I absolutely love this film. Ford plays Rozat “Rusty” Sabich, a prosecutor and right-hand man of Prosecuting Attorney Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy). Sabich, married, arrives at work one day to learn that his colleague Carolyn Polhemus (Greta Scacchi, who was so fine) has been murdered.

Sabich takes over the investigation, but only to his knowledge, faces a conflict of interest since he had an affair with the girl. After finding Sabich’s blood at the murder scene, he is charged with the murder. The ending of this film is one of the best in history (and one I should have listed now that I think of it).

8. Det. Capt. John Book - Witness

When a young Amish woman and her son get caught up in the murder of an undercover narcotics agent, their savior turns out to be Philly detective John Book in Peter Weir’s 1985 film.

Ford goes into hiding in Amish country to protect a little boy (and himself) from the baddies. But what starts as a crime thriller turns into a love story as he and the little boys Amish mother start to fall into forbidden love. By Act Three, the film turns back on track in a dramatic and violent showdown across a the calm, landscape of Amish country.

This is the only time Ford has been nominated for an Academy Award.

7. Lieutenant Colonel Mike Barnsby - Force 10 from Navarone

Yes, I know. Popcorny, WW2 action yarn. When a kid is fresh off of Star Wars at 7 years of age, a film like this leaves an impression. Although not a sequel to 1961’s “The Guns of Navarone”, it features two characters from the earlier classic where British special forces are sent to destroy a bridge important to the German offensive. They are led by a young American Colonel, played by Ford, and joined by Tito’s Yugoslav partisans. A guilty pleasure that has stood the test of time for me.

Check out this scene and look for Apollo Creed and the great Robert Shaw.

6. Bob Falfa - American Graffiti

Back when Lucas had fire, 1973’s American Graffiti gives us a the lives and youth on the brink of maturity just before the assassination of J.F.K. The film follows one night in the lives of several recently graduated high school students with Ford playing the older street racer.

5. Jack Trainer - Working Girl

Not the first time I’ve seen Ford do comedy, which he has a natural flair for (See the Frisco Kid, 7 Days and 7 Nights), but the best one I’ve seen him do. Working Girl tells the story of a young secretary, Tess McGill, working in the mergers and acquisitions department of a Wall Street investment bank. When her boss, Katharine Parker, breaks her leg skiing, Tess uses her absence and connections, including Parker’s errant beau Jack Trainer, to put forward her idea for a merger deal.

The next 10 minutes sequence shows Ford’s range as an actor, comedy, drama, insecurity, confidence. Perhaps one of the most satisfying roles he has ever done in terms of performance.

4. Jack Ryan - Clear And Present Danger

Believe it or not, I was surprised to find out Ford was taking over Baldwin’s role as Jack Ryan in the follow up the stellar The Hunt For Red October. And, grudgingly, I admit, I prefer Baldwin’s Ryan over Ford’s. But it was the second outing as Ryan that I came to truly embrace Ford in the role.

Based on the novels by Tom Clancy, Ryan is appointed the CIA Acting Deputy Director and discovers that he is being kept in the dark by colleagues who are conducting a covert war against drug lords in Colombia. This is Ford in the whole action package; intelligent, tough, everyday man.

3. Rick Deckard - Blade Runner

Much has been made of Ford’s displeasement over the film and the many edited versions and admittedly, the film took awhile to grow on me. When I first saw Blade Runner, I expected Sci-Fi Han Solo Ford, not the stylistic Noir and subdued almost Mickey Spillane style Ford. But over the years, this film has climbed to my 3rd favorite Harrison Ford role.

Tied for Number One: Han Solo - Star Wars and Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Han Solo or Indiana Jones. I can’t separate the two. Both roles are of a lifetime. Both roles purely satisfying on every level. Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without Han Solo. Forget about the Jedi Geek storyline, I always wanted more on Han Solo, the only real feeling character in the film series.

To this day, my brother reminds I originally picked Luke (I was 7 years old and didn’t know any better) and reminds me of how Luke is a bitch. Han Solo is a defining role in cinema history; the space pirate, the scoundrel.

Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Who hasn’t wanted to be Indiana Jones ? A role defying, cinematic, swashbuckling adventurer, often imitated, never duplicated. Probably the defining role of his lifetime. To this day, I try and imagine Tom Selleck as Jones and just can’t see it. Who knows where Ford would be today if CBS allowed Selleck out of his Magnum P.I. contract. Even more, imagine where Tom Selleck would be ?

Even my first Super8 films were all based off of what I had seen from Raiders. I’m not even going to say anything more about him at this point. You get the jist. And as a special video treat, someone has made Raiders into a classic serial adventure program. It still has the magic.

© 2008 Cineobscure.