BEFORE: Well, as you might have expected, the end of the Goldie Hawn segment is also the start of the Mel Gibson chain.
THE PLOT: An old flame discovers her ex-boyfriend from the past is a relocated FBI informant out to stop the bad guys.
AFTER: Like "The Sugarland Express", this comes off like a film that tried to cover up the fact that there's no real story arc by just smashing up a bunch of police cars, which might have worked on the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, but I guess I expect more from a film. But the chase scenes here are of the more stereotypical Hollywood variety, complete with stacks of cardboard boxes for cars to crash into, and wet cement for motorcycle cops to fall in. The only things missing were the giant plate of glass to break, and the fruit stand to destroy.
The film starts with a series of coincidences - the villain gets out of prison and decides to track down the informant at the same time that the informant is spotted by his old girlfriend while working as a mechanic. Meanwhile, his FBI contact has just retired, which somehow leaves his cover in jeopardy. 15 years in hiding, and this all comes together in a single weekend? Sorry, I'm not buying in.
The reunited lovers go on the run, and time and time again they seem to forget that someone is pursuing them, so they'll do something dumb like use a credit card, or call a friend for help, which reveals their location and keeps the villains one step behind. What part of "hiding" don't the characters seem to understand?
The end is just a confusing mess, it's set at a zoo where the informant used to work, which gives him some knowledge of a rain-forest simulator that for some reason is populated by real monkeys and tigers. How is this even an attraction at the zoo, if human visitors and tigers can come in contact with each other? That's a pretty dangerous zoo.
By this time, however, I'd pretty much forgotten why the villains were even chasing the informant in the first place. Not that it really matters in the long run.
Also starring Mel Gibson (last seen in "The Patriot"), David Carradine (last seen in "Kill Bill, Vol. 2"), Bill Duke, Stephen Tobolowsky (last heard in "The Lorax"), Joan Severance, Jeff Corey (last seen in "Conan the Destroyer"), with a cameo from Clyde Kusatsu.
RATING: 3 out of 10 aliases
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