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Just fucking do it.
Especially if youre getting away with it.
You never watch a Harrison Ford performance thinking hes trying to impress you.
(Let other, less-confident actors worry about such nonsense.)
As Ford would say, lets just fucking do it.
He also looks openly contemptuous of his co-star.
Here, hes a normal dad who is targeted by identity thieves, namely Paul Bettanys nasty hacker.
you could see Ford wincing every time he has to whisper a platitude.
Winkler does his best, but he just doesnt have the gravitas to make this unconventional casting sing.
And then, only barely.
Bad news:Paranoiasank without a trace, and deservedly so.
Business ethics and airport-novel pulp collide, and the mistake everybody inParanoiamakes is taking this nonsense seriously.
The film was a commercial disappointment.
Still, on all fronts, this is far, far away fromStar Wars.
27.K-19: The Widowmaker(2002)
The question Should Harrison Ford ever do an accent?
is answered definitely no in this otherwise perfectly fine and straightforward war thriller.
Ford plays a Russian submarine captain who deals with a radiation leak with officers Liam Neeson and Peter Sarsgaard.
I wished it were otherwise, but Im a big believer in instinct.
(This is fitting considering that the voters have recently sent Ross to the White House.
He has fun with it!
jokes involving a cow but Ford and Gene Wilder are a surprisingly potent comic team.
You wish he would have tried stuff like this a little more often.
They were just acting.)
Ford wins, but Pitt would live to battle another day.
Fords menacing, but in a directed-byRobert Zemeckis way.
Hes threatening, but not palpably.
Its a good effort, though.
Wed love to see Ford as a full-on crazy, ranting villain someday.
It might not work, but itd be something to watch.
He plays a man named William Jones no relation to Indiana whos the father of Livelys boyfriend.
And the scene where he is shot (by John Leguizamo!)
sticks in the memory 25-plus years later.
Theres a dryness to these movies a lets-get-the-job-done simplicity thats refreshing but also doesnt make them very memorable.
(Even if that title is not so great.)
This perfectly rollicking thriller is pretty disposable but, in hindsight, also kinda poignant.
InAir Force One, hes a total studio pro, selling us aDie Hardknockoff like its no big thing.
Its a tricky performance, and he navigates it perfectly.
This film also features the best Ford sex scene ever, for what its worth.
Its the first thing you notice about Bob Falfa, the cocky hot-rodder whos the ostensible villain inAmerican Graffiti.
And unlike so many bullies, Falfa gets his comeuppance in the end.
A chase picture with almost no action in it?
A summer blockbuster thats really a cat-and-mouse game between two well-developed adversaries?
And a box-office titan that also gets incredible reviews and plenty of Oscar nominations?
How could anyone doubt that hed succeed?
4.Witness(1985)
Ford earned his lone Oscar nomination how can he have only one?
It is also as kind to the Amish characters as it is to those who are not.
Its a terrific little movie that you may have forgotten about, but it holds up magnificently.
And I think theyre wrong.
Hes good with a blaster.
Hes secretly a softie.
(It was a joke, at the time, Fordinsisted this year.
A stress-relieving joke.)
Regardless, Han Solo has emerged as one of the quintessential cinematic guy role models of the last half-century.
Hes more relatable than James Bond.
Hes more ordinary than a comic-book superhero.
And hes a lot funnier than the Man With No Name.
(That scene where hesuccumbs to that voodoo potionremains really unsettling.)
