RIP Train (Gene Hackman 1930-2025): THE FIRM (1993)

 "I guess the only other question is, who do we bill this hour to?"

"How about the FBI?"

So much plot! But, you know what, you See Tom, See Tom Run, and thats not nothing. And he beats the everloving crap out old-ass Wilford Brimley, so yeah it gets to 4 stars.

The Firm runs on so many points of story that you almost don't realize how efficient the thing runs; it's like getting on to one of those light-speed rail trains that is going at 500 mph, but you feel taken care of and the Stewardess knows just what drink you like and so on. A good sign of this is how quickly the screenwriters get Mitch into the Firm and on his way to being meshed into this new high-value world, so much has seemed to happen in the first fifteen minutes and then strolls in Hackman as the Mentor Avary and it's another good step into the srory. And then all too swiftly you realize that there is something not quite right in this Firm (two lawyers killed in an explosion on a boat, guess that ... hapoens), and away we go.

How much of it being such a well-oiled Dramatic-Thriller machine could make it so that we don't care about who we are seeing on screen - this despite the fact that like 27 or 28 different character actors are in this and it's a gourmet buffet of them (from Tobin Bell and Dean Norris to Paul Calderon and Ed Harris to esteemed character actor Margot Martindale and look who pops up as the gangsters in the final reel and that one guy is from Analyze This etc). 

Luckily, Sydney Pollack andTom Cruise make Mitch someone who is naive just up to the point where we might want to get off the train, but don't. He is a character in over his head, and falls for a couple of very dumb traps (one that is easy enough to simply not do that with a strange woman on a beach at night), but you're still on his side because he can play disappointed and pissed with himself with conviction, and the story is going to keep going on anyway.

Actually, Tripplehorn is probably the key to this succeeding just as much if not more than Cruise; if she is miscast or they don't gell, then we don't buy the emotional part of everything that's to follow. She is so good here that you might neglect how strong she is and the sort of mild character strand being formed between her and Avary, so that when he cpmes to ask her to go to the Caymans and she shows up (if you dont know the film this doesn't matter to mention this, and if you do you remember doncha) you really aren't sure if her motives now are with or against Mitch. She is dynamite here and probably gets overlooked somewhat given the large berth of ::waves arms:: everyone present.  

It should also go without saying - not just because of his passing on but because of how he always was on film - Gene Hackman is essential as well to this being so tense.  There is this amiability to him that you are on your guard about watching him, even before anything shady is revealed.  Once his character gets more emeshed (or tries to) with Tripplehorn, there's this unexpected vulnerability.  Is it an act?  Or is this a person who has sold his soul to the firm and is living on life support of a kind?  Hackman doesnt play a single note falsely - he never could be with that face and eyes - and he has a lot of seemingly minor moments that all add up leading to his last dialog in the film.  

Of course it moves well-oiled and slickly since, you might argue, it comes from a page turning paperback sensation and all that. What makes The Firm work though as a movie is the logic present in the twists and turns even when they should be so preposterous; I think I was more on the edge of my seat during the file copying and faxing than even the more conventional chase set pieces. 

It is probably more preposterous than it isn't, and yet it's like the other gigantic paperback bestselling adaptation of 93, Jurassic Park, in that you have a story that should not survive scrutiny but, you know what, it's still a movie and if the director and cast get us for the ride then that's fine (though this isn't quite up to par with that film or what I look as the other "I've been set up and gotta get out of it" film, The Fugitive).

So, watch guys like Brimley and Harris and Hunter take all that delicious dialog and serve it up hot and fresh, as well as the more subtle turns by David Strathairn and whoever that guy is Mitch talks to at the bench in DC from the FBI (thats the one I should know but darn gotta look him up, too). And that Grusin score... lots of pep in its step!