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Witness [DVD] [1985] starring: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Jan Rubes

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Average rating -

Rating: - Great Film

Loved this , beautifully shot, unusual content, great casting & Harrison Ford is very believable as John Book. The DVD `extras` are really worth looking at, interviews with cast and production team. A quality film. Get this, great value!

Rating: - 80's cop drama with a twist

You have to see Witness at least once before you die! It's the story of an Amish lad who witnesses a crime, and the cop (Harrison Ford) who assigns himself to protect the lad from the accused. There is a nice but obvious twist to the tale, and it gets you inside the ideals of the Amish without being too voyeuristic, making them humans who choose a different path, as opposed to wierdo's! The music is background at best, aside from the 'Raising of the Barn' which is a superb piece, with inspirational visuals to go with it. The plot is fairly obvious from the start, with few twists, but as you watch this film you find yourself drawn to some of the more peripheral characters and certainly rooting for 'Book' in the ice-cream scene!
A darn good watch, and perfect retro cop drama with a difference

Rating: - Above all, great directing

This is all about a great directing job by Peter Weir. The cop story is just the excuse to let feelings out from the main characters. Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis give outstanding performances, mainly due to the way the script is done: the say much more by the things they don't say. Silences are more important than words. The bathing scene is the best example. Peter Weir is able to convey all these feeling and still maintaining a great pace and rhythm. John Seale's cinematography and Maurice Jrre's music are both remarkable. Saw it first back in 85 (I was 11) and now again (I'm 31) and still amazes me... Such a pity that Kelly didn't get the career we thought she would have...

Rating: - Well crafted thriller with a good heart

Inventive thriller which chooses a great setting and character type to give a much needed shot of originality to a crammed genre. Ford is a great choice to play the hard cop with a soft heart and McGillis is perfection as her character. There's chemistry there too. Doesn't try to be too spectacular but instead remembers the quiet dignity of its hosts, and makes great use of this. Interweaved a good little thriller around them, and Ford's compassion for his new friends sets the seal on a class thriller.

Rating: - Slow, un-moving and positively boring in parts!!!

I'd never seen this film before, I purchsed this as part of a triple pack together with Clear and present danger and K-19: The Widowmaker, I watched all of these trailers and decided that 2 were well worth buying (I was correct after viewing them), but this film looked like it was ok and that was about it.

There simply is not enough going on in this film to engage you for the entire 1 hour 45 minutes running time, several times I had to fast forward over some scenes as all that was going on was music playing with very little going on.

The acting from everyone was poor, Harrison Ford gave the best performance, but that's really not saying much, this film could and should have been alot better than it is, the worst thing is that the bad guys simply were not particularly bad, menacing or believable, there's only one of them that I recognise, indeed only 3 members of the entire cast for that matter, after these performances it's not hard to see why!!

From Star Wars to The Fugitive to Air Force One I've always enjoyed Harrison Ford, he's a good solid actor, but he should have avoided this one like the plague, I rarely buy films from the 80's or before, this kind of film is the very reason why.

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