Everyone grows a bit more tolerant of others here. The Amish don't condone his methods, but in the end they realize that the cop's way - the violent way - is the only way to ensure their safety. His sense of outrage is palpable, as is his determination to see that justice is done. The main reason he's there is to watch over the boy, and Ford is best in this film when he's playing protector.
Nor is there any way that the spark between Book and the young witness' widowed mother ( Kelly McGillis) could ever become a real relationship, and they both know it. However, it's clear he doesn't fit in, especially when a gang of prejudiced punks insult his hosts and the hot-headed cop is unable to turn the other cheek. If I asked you to name the most memorable scene in Witness (1985), I suspect this one would come to mind: The dance sequence in the barn to the strains of the song What a Wonderful World This Would Be sung by the legendary Sam Cooke. Book is initially perplexed by their choices, but gradually comes to appreciate their quiet ways. And it is also one hell of a thriller.Witness is a well made fish-out-of-water story, contrasting the violence and complications of the big city with the simpler lifestyle of the Amish, who decline modern technology. Director Peter Weir Writers William Kelley Pamela Wallace Earl W.
#Witness 1985 movie#
It is a movie about adults, whose lives have dignity and whose choices matter to them. Drama Romance Thriller When a young Amish boy is sole witness to a murder while visiting Philadelphia with his mother, police detective John Book tries to protect the boy until an attempt on Book's life forces him into hiding in Amish country. We have lately been getting so many pallid, bloodless little movies mostly recycled teenage exploitation films made by ambitious young stylist without a thought in their heads - that "Witness" arrives like a fresh new day. When they finally kiss, it is a glorious sensuous moment because this kiss is a sharing of trust and passion, not just another plug- in element from your standard kit of movie images. The love that begins to grow between them is not made out of clichés the cultural gulf that separates them, is at least as important to both of them as the feelings they have. Kelly McGillis, the young actress who plays the Amish widow, has a kind of luminous simplicity about her it is refreshing and even subtly erotic to see a woman who doesn't subscribe to all the standard man-woman programmed responses of modern society. Harrison Ford has never given a better performance in a movie. But all three elements work together so well that something organic is happening here we're inside this story. The ways of life in the Amish community are so well observed that they have a documentary feel. The love story by itself would be exciting. It is masterful filmmaking, The thriller elements alone would command our attention. In the whole middle section of this movie, he shows the man from the city and the simple Amish women within the context of the Amish community. "Witness" was directed by Peter Weir, the gifted Australian director of " The Year of Living Dangerously." He has a strong and sure feeling for places, for the land, for the way that people build their self-regard by the way they do their work. It's about two independent, complicated people who begin to love each other because they have shared danger, they work well together, they respect each other - and because their physical attraction for each other is so strong it almost becomes another character in the movie.
It's not one of those romances where the man and woman fall into each other's arms because their hormones are programmed that way.
Now it turns into an intelligent and perceptive love story. Up until the return to Pennsylvania, "Witness" has been a slick, superior thriller. When an Amish woman and her son get involved in the murder of an undercover narcotics agent, their savior is revealed as hardened Philly detective John Book. He manages to drive them all back to the Amish lands of Pennsylvania before collapsing from loss of blood.Īnd it's at this point, really, that the movie begins. His life and the lives of the widow and her son are in immediate danger. Then it turns out that the police department itself is implicated in the killing. He stages lineups hoping the kid can spot the murderer. Harrison Ford plays the tough big city detective who gets assigned to the case. In the train station in Philadelphia, the little boy witnesses a murder. His widow and young son leave on a train journey.
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