Shoot to Kill

This 1988 thriller was Sidney Poitier's first screen acting gig in 11 years. Wait, I shouldn't lead with that, because your mind is likely to head straight to high level dramatic arts and if so, you took a wrong turn. Let me, instead begin by telling you, this 1988 thriller stars Sidney Poitier, but also Tom Berenger, Kirstie Alley, Clancy Brown (the creepy bad guy from the first Highlander and the voice of Mr. Krabs) and Andrew Robinson (the creepy dad from Hellraiser) and it's all directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who brought us such slices of cinematic heaven as Turner & Hooch and Tomorrow Never Dies (yes, the Bond movie with Teri Hatcher as the Bond girl, you know you saw it). That probably gives you a better picture of just what this movie watching experience will be like. As a boy growing up in the 80's, I loved action movies. You have a "good guy" chasing a "bad guy" through some sort of wilderness, toss in a pretty girl and a heavy dose of big action and terrible comedy and I was in. Brown plays a felon on the run trying to make it to Canada. He decides to go through the woods of northern Washington state to get there and kidnaps a guide (played by Kirstie Alley) (yeah, you heard me) to get him there. Poitier is an FBI agent from the city with a personal interest because this guy caused him grief earlier in San Fran, while Berenger is a borderline mountain man and Alley's boyfriend. And so it begins. As you may well guess, these two "good guys" are from totally different worlds and can't stand each other, but, and I don't want to give it away for you too much, end up being fast friends in the end. This movie is predictable, poorly written, terribly acted and generally awful and I recommend it to all of you wholeheartedly.

ME