Name: Retro Film Review: Fled (1996)
Item: Fled
Rating: 40
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

In 1990s some of Hollywood's "high concepts" were images instead of ideas. One of such images featured escaping white and black convict being chained together. This image, "borrowed" from 1958 film The Defiant Ones, served as an inspiration for some television commercials, and later, in 1996 it became the basis for Fled, action thriller directed by Kevin Hooks.

The plot begins in Georgia, US state known, among other things, for using its convicts i the chain gangs . Piper (played by Laurence Fishburne), quiet black man, and Dodge (played by Stephen Baldwin), young white man belong to one of those chain gangs. When one of the prisoners takes a hold of gun and starts shooting, Piper and Dodge use the commotion as an opportunity to escape. Later it turns out that the incident probably wasn't accidental - somebody wanted Dodge, former hacker, to escape and lead someone to disk containing important information about Cuban mafia. Pursued by federal agents and police detective Matthew Gibson (played by Will Patton), Piper and Dodge get to Atlanta where they would try to locate the disk before police, mafia, corrupt officials and other interested parties.

Fled has plenty of nice-looking action scenes, but, despite all of his talents, director Kevin Hooks is more than aware than they are connected by paper-thin plot that heavily borrows from other, much better films. Hooks pay homage to those films by having characters mentioning them in some of film's most entertaining moments. But those moments, including the surreal strip joint scene with Britney Powel, are very rare in this film; most of non-action scenes are dead serious, and in those moments Fled becomes unbearably cliched and tedious. Laurence Fishburne seems very relaxed in his role, but he handles character of Piper very well and has good chemistry with Stephen Baldwin, here very convincingly playing hacker. Will Patton is also very good, although his talents, like almost everyone else's in the film, fail to rescue Fled from being drowned in the sea of Hollywood's mediocrity.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on June 5th 2003)