Okay, here's the deal. There are people in this world that make everything they do seem too easy. Some folks used to think that Henry Aaron was kind of a lazy ballplayer. He didn't really swing the bat like some of the crushers. He didn't really run hard when he played the field. He didn't steal a lot of bases. Well, truth be told, ol' Hank was one of the best in the business, 755 homeruns aside. He didn't swing the bat hard because his swing carried power from the forearms and wrists. He didn't muscle the ball over the fence as much as he just stroked it there in a fluid motion. He didn't run all over the field because, more often than not, he had studied the opposing players and knew how to position himself with each pitch. He didn't need to run like a bullet and dive for balls because he was already there. If you're that good at what you do, you don't need to kill yourself to do it.
To me, Tommy Lee Jones is a lot like that. You don't hear a lot about him getting into the Method stuff, gaining fifty pounds or becoming a Marine in two weeks or learning the piano with the Liberace Big Note Songbook. He just seems to show up and be as good as he possibly can be. Now, before I get a bunch of e-mail, let me say that, yes, I'm sure he prepares for every role as diligently as he can. I'm saying that he's not in the Enquirer or on some "exclusive Entertainment Tonight" crap every other week, blathering on about how he does it. He just does it. He does it right, and it shows in every project he does.
Granted, sometimes the project itself doesn't hit, like House of Cards or Cobb, but, more often than not, he's the best thing in the movie. He doesn't just act, he just seems to become the character he's playing. Very seldom does he rely on major makeup tricks, and, as far as I can remember, he's only "Streeped" through a role once, in Blown Away. The rest of the time he's just slipped into a smooth Southern accent. I wish he hadn't been so overshadowed in Batman Forever, because one can only imagine what he could've done with Two-Face if he'd been able to go wild with it like Jack's Joker. He can be deep in character, like he was in Lonesome Dove, one of his best performances to date, or he can be deadpan funny, like he was in Men In Black. It almost seems lke there's nothing he can't do well.
Well, his new movie, U.S. Marshals, is out now, a sequel of sorts to his Oscar-winning turn in The Fugitive as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. When Tommy Lee is on, he's on for the full ride, and folks, Tommy Lee is on in this movie, lemme tell you.
U.S. Marshals runs a similar plot to its predecessor, of course, but throws in a new kink to generate the power. This time, the fugitive in question is not a clumsy, haphazard doctor but an ex-CIA operative named Mark Sheridan, played by Wesley Snipes. He's being transferred to another prison by plane when the plane crashes. Also aboard the plane is (you guessed it...) Sam Gerard. And Gerard and his team of work-addicted jitterbugs (Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, and Tom Wood) are on the case, namely, to track down this very ticked-off former CIA man while he's trying to find out who set him up to take the fall for the murders of two other agents.
I'd be boldface-lying if I told you there was anything unfamiliar about this movie. It follows the standard formula of any predator/prey scenario, but this time the focus is much more on the marshals. Before, the story revolved around Dr. Richard Kimble and his quest to find the man who killed his wife. The marshals were an "also-ran" subplot. But Tommy Lee's performance got a lot of attention moved to his side of the fence. People were riveted by Gerard, his humor, his dedication, his work ethic. He cared not a damn for the question of guilt or innocence, he just caught the runaways and let God sort them out.
Now, we get to see things from the other side of the fence, so to speak. We are given a guided tour through the procedural process. Yes, they are after Sheridan, but we get to see the steps involved. Director Stuart Baird has a killer eye for detail, as he showed us in Executive Decision, and here, that keen eye works wonders. There's no glamour here, it's all work, from the grind of surveillance to the interrogations to the piecing together of theories and evidence. Baird and screenwriter John Pogue weed out the usual background fluff that most folks will pack into a script to make the characters more "well-rounded, like nagging ex-wives, corruption, alcoholism, whatever. Here, we get good cops doing their job, and it's a nice change from the "complex" troubled cops we've seen for twenty years now.
Granted, the whole formula is slightly off-kilter without the "innocent man" storyline. Wesley Snipes is good, and his character is good, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't quite have the appeal of the first one. There's a world of difference between an ex-CIA man solving a mystery to prove his innocence and a heart surgeon with absolutely no training whatsoever doing the same thing. Snipes' character has all the training he needs, and immediately sets out to do what he has to do. You don't find yourself rooting as hard for him as you did Kimble, because, frankly, he doesn't need our help. When he sets out to solve his mystery, there's no doubt that he'll find out who set him up. Richard Kimble had no idea what he was doing, and had to fumble his way through everything. The emotional tugs just aren't there, and the movie suffers from it.
But, ultimately, this is Tommy Lee's show. He struts and banters his way through this like the biggest rooster in the coop. He commands every eye when he's onscreen, whether he's tearing through a drug store trying to find a particular pill, or schmoozing his superiors , or barking orders, he's stylin' and profilin' his butt off. And he makes it look so easy. One might even say that he's grooming this part to be his Indiana Jones or Jack Ryan or Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon), priming himself for a nice series of films where he can be the King of All Lawmen, tracking down guest-star fugitives every three or four years. Combine this with the inevitable series of films that will come from the Men In Black success, and Tommy Lee will be able to pick and choose his character work for many moons.
The rest of the cast follows Jones' lead, as far as the Long Arm of the Law is concerned. Pantoliano, Roebuck, and Wood run right behind Jones, throwing the occasional smart-guy comment but following the steps just like they are supposed to. The weak link in this chain is the mysterious appearance of Robert Downey, Jr. as an agent assigned to Gerard's team. The Publicity Machine would have us believe that Downey was clean and sober throughout the filming, but here he looks like death on a soda cracker. He's as passive as a kitten onscreen, giving off no energy or presence at all. He gets overshadowed by Pantoliano and Roebuck a lot, and that's not good. When Downey and Tommy Lee are on together, it's like watching Saran Wrap. He just fades into the woodwork. Stoned or not, you'd think he would've put up some sort of a fight to be dynamic. Not here, friends. Skim milk has more gusto than Junior in this thing.
If you are a Tommy Lee Jones fan, and I can't imagine anyone not being one, you'll love this movie. It's not The Fugitive, Part II, though, so don't expect that. This time out, we're allowed to root for the cops instead of the guy running from them. It's not a perfect movie, but, with Tommy Lee in perfect form, it doesn't have to be.
Image copyright Warner Bros.
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