FRANTIC. Directed by Roman Polanski; written by Roman Polanski and Gerard Brach; produced by Thom Mount and Tim Hampton for Warner Bros. Starring Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner, Rated R (a little nudity and violence; language).
More reviews by —
TITLE:
RATING:
Frantic is a fair-to-middling thriller which starts out with a good idea but just can't seem to run with it. It might provide a decent evening's entertainment but for the high expectations raised by the names of Polanski and Ford. The director of Chinatown, a movie on my and many others' all-time best lists, can do better than this.
Ford is not up to his best here, either. He has been less interesting (notably in the otherwise worthwhile Blade Runner) and has been in worse movies (does anyone else remember—shudder—Hanover Street?). But we expect more from him nowadays.
The basic story idea is a good one, and, consequently, the early parts of the movie are the best. The situation is frightening for American doctor Richard Walker (Ford), and it's one any traveler, especially someone who's been to a foreign country, can identify with.
Walker and his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley) arrive, somewhat jet-lagged, in Paris for a professional meeting and a kind of second honeymoon. They got away from the airport with the wrong suitcase, but other than that, the crossing was a smooth one.
Then, while hubby croons "I love Paris" in the shower (or is it "in the springtime"?) Sondra leaves the room and, as it seems for a while anyway, simply vanishes. Walker is left to find her and his way around Paris alone. And she was the one with the high school French; he barely knows "merci."
The first people Walker goes to for help—the concierge, the police—aren't sympathetic, assuming he's the victim of fickle woman. Since he's sure he's not (and so are we; I mean, what woman would walk out on Harrison Ford?), he's forced to track Sondra down himself.
Ford is at his best when he has a sidekick or definite romantic interest to kid around with. His cynical sarcasm in the face of disaster is what makes Han Solo and Indiana Jones such good characters. Here, however, he's on his own most of the time and he's not as interesting.
To be fair, this problem is due more to the script than to the acting. Walker is stuffy and proper and just plain dull. His relationship with Michelle (Seigner), the Parisian punk who causes the suitcase confusion, is too ambigious and fitfully drawn. It doesn't display a romantic spark, like we see in Witness for example, or the buddy-buddy banter that made Raiders of the Lost Ark such fun.
By comparison, Frantic just isn't much fun at all.
March 9, 1988