EIGHT YEARS AGO SHE LOST HER MEMORY. NOW, A DETECTIVE MUST HELP HER REMEMBER THE PAST BEFORE IT BURIES THEM BOTH. WHAT’S FORGOTTEN IS NOT ALWAYS GONE.
After having been found eight years ago, amnesia-stricken and badly injured, Samantha (Geena Davis) has become a beloved wife, mother and teacher in a small Pennsylvania town; then one day, her past comes knocking.
Die Hard 2 director Renny Harlin and Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black got together for this highly charged, preposterous but still immensely entertaining action movie where Harlin’s then-wife Davis got a chance to shine as a homemaker who discovers that she possesses Jason Bourne-like skills in the art of slicing and dicing bad guys. Samuel L. Jackson is well cast as her involuntary sidekick.
A little too over-the-top at times, but who cares.
1996-U.S. 120 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Renny Harlin. Screenplay: Shane Black. Cast: Geena Davis (Samantha Caine), Samuel L. Jackson (Mitch Hennessey), Craig Bierko (Timothy), Yvonne Zima, Tom Amandes, Brian Cox, David Morse.
Trivia: Co-produced by Harlin and Black.
Last word: “I remember a lot of the night scenes, when we were shooting on a bridge where the end action sequence takes place. I remember there was one scene, for example, where Geena is supposed to be… she’s sort of staggering, she’s all wounded and bloodied, and then she falls on the ground, and then her little daughter runs back and tells her to get up. So we were shooting one of the first takes of that, and she’s on the ground, and they do the scene with the daughter, and she’s supposed to get up, and she kind of tries a little bit and then she doesn’t. And then I wait and say, ‘Okay Geena, you can get up now’. And she tries again, and she doesn’t. And it’s like, ‘Geena, we’re going to run out of film, just get up.’ And she’s like, ‘I cant!’ And then I yell cut, and we go over there to see what’s wrong, and she has frozen to the ground because the front of her jacket was covered in blood. The blood has frozen to the ground, so we had to have, like, four people rip her off the ground. So that gives you an idea of the circumstances.” (Harlin, Den of Geeks)
