Wrongfully Accused
As Reviewed by James Brundage
Leslie Neilson is the missing ingredient (and perhaps link) that makes these things funny. There's just something, the X-Factor, about him on celluloid that we have all grown to love, that lets us accept parodies that wouldn't fly with anyone else. They let the inner child go free, let us have fun, and let us laugh. It's him, that's all. Leslie Neilson, like a brand name, making us laugh since 1980 (Airplane!). Through the parody trio of the Naked Gun films, to the bomb Spy Hard, to his series Police Squad, the Airplane! Films, and a very little known nature special he did that somehow ended up not making me flip the channel, he just does it perfectly. He has a funny face; he has a funny pathos. He's just a funny guy.
This movie is the standard Neilson film, this time with him as Ryan Harrison, who was wrongfully accused of murder. You're thinking The Fugitive, right? Kind of. Thrown into the mix are Mission: Impossible, Patriot Games, The Usual Suspects, Lone Star, Clear and Present Danger, The Day of the Jackal, 2001, The House of Yes, The Saint and Baywatch. It proves it, I guess, that the people who do these things actually have brains to know the little touches in movies we've never heard of (or, at least most of us). There really is no plot to it, but, hell, it's fun.
Movie Reviews by James Brundage