Film

Bird on a Wire (1990)

Director: John Badham

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Beware films which boast hybrid classifications like action-romantic comedy and credit three screenwriters (one per genre?). This formulaic offering teams Gibson and Hawn - a love match made in casting heaven - as ex-lovers, reunited after years apart, who find themselves on the run from vengeful criminals. Rick (Gibson), hiding under the Federal Witness Protection Program, changes identities and jobs like most people change socks; Marianne (Hawn) is a lawyer who, in taking up Rick's dangerous life-style, bears the permanent expression of a kid on a rollercoaster. Within the first half-hour, we've met the baddies (led by a taciturn Carradine), heard Rick and Marianne's teasing banter, and experienced the thrills of a shootout and car chase. As for what follows, this drearily repetitious film offers more of the same with variations in backdrop, all directed in perfunctory fashion by Badham. It does have a nice '60s soundtrack; shame about the rest.

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