Eddie Macons Flucht

A fellow reviewer -- the one from Winnipeg -- has this one correctly pegged. It's a decent piece of entertainment and due to the decline in film standards, it probably plays better now than it did back in 1983. There are faults. Kirk Douglas seems too old for his part and Lee Purcell seems too young for hers, and the whole notion that Eddie Macon's escape-plan involves running on foot across country, sort of in a series of marathon races, never quite comes into focus. However, John Schneider makes a likable hero -- his appeal is augmented by several "beefcake" scenes -- and as has been mentioned elsewhere, the supporting cast is diverse, talented, and well-chosen. One aspect of the film has not been discussed. The cop's obsessive pursuit of Eddie Macon, reminiscent of "Les Miserables," raises questions. Considering all the criminals who must have caused him grief over the years, the cop seems curiously fixated on Eddie who, as felons go, is decidedly "small potatoes." Does the cop possibly lust after the young, handsome, and decidedly well-built Eddie, and does he then convert this "forbidden desire" into a rigorous drive to enforce the law? This might explain why the cop softens at the end of the chase, though the cop's apparent change of heart doesn't quite ring true no matter how you regard his motives. (One almost wishes for a dream sequence in which the cop gets to soap Eddie's back in the hotel bathroom's shower -- and what a commodious shower that hotel has!)

Watching Eddie Macon's Run and seeing what John Schneider had to go through in flashback in what landed him in Huntsville State Prison and his efforts on a second escape attempt, I concluded someone really does not like the great state of Texas. It's important to remember that Schneider moved his family from Florida to Texas because of promised good paying jobs with the oil industry. At that time Texas was booming because of oil, a lot of people went there like Schneider.

But Schneider who needs money badly because his young son has a rare blood disease finds himself working for peanuts because of some kickback scheme. When he protests and gets nasty about it, he gets tossed in jail for a five year rap. On his second attempt to escape he breaks out during the prison rodeo and he's got a good plan.

He's also got like Richard Kimble his own Lieutenant Gerard in Kirk Douglas who is less than impressed with the cowboy mentality of the place. He's from a civilized land called New Jersey and he brought in Schneider before and can do it again if for no other reason than to show the rest of the hicks good investigatory police work.

One of the few people that Schneider gets some sympathy from is heiress Lee Purcell. And she's helping him essentially for the thrill.

Schneider with his devotion to his family was one of the more noble heroes of the Eighties cinema. We the audience hope that he makes it on his run from Huntsville to the Laredo border town. Eddie Macon's Run compares most favorably to those classics from Warner Brothers in the Thirties, The Life Of Jimmy Dolan and They Made Me A Criminal. And if you're familiar with those films you know how Eddie Macon's Run will turn out.

Standard plot of "innocent guy on the run from the law" works well. However, this movie would be much less without Kirk Douglas. He makes the movie. Nothing spectacular here, but not a bad movie. Any movie that has the video game "Gorf" can't be bad. I give it a 7 out of 10. Lee Purcell is hot!

Did you see that nice guy who made a smallest mistakes and sent to jail overpaying three years and after tries escape got another two years there, having a good wife and a sick little son needing expensive medical treatment, well it happened with Eddie Macon when he decides moves from Florida to Texas due there have a lot of well-paid jobs to raising money to afford his little son treatment and in few years after the boy will be healed, then he saves enough money to buy a boat that he always dreaming for.

Under this far-fetched plot the movie starts, he got escape from there and a headhunter Carl "Buster" Marzack (Kirk Douglas), yes that guy who in the past arrested Eddie at first escape, Marzack does not forget the scar at your face did by Eddie, Marzack offers himself to bring back the convict for personal reasons, he is a sort of old heartless sniffer dog, he usually misleading everyone as countless phony ID, on the run Eddie enters in a desert area always running by night and face a weird farmers Potts family where they figure out as cattle's thief, letting Eddie to the main house to confess, there the crazy Daryl Potts (Tom Noonan) wants hang him there, including his odd and flamboyant wife Kay Potts (Lisa Dunsheath) although his shrewd brother Rudy (Jay O. Sanders) doesn't agree do such unkindness.

The scary Eddie perceives the jeopardy and shooting them with his gun hidden in backpack escaping from there, Marzack already awares of sad happenings in the farm going there and got the backpack left there, inside he found a map where Eddie described his route until the Mexico's border at Laredo, however the unlucked guy will overturn his fortune saving a little girl about to be rapped at your fancy Mercedes at desert road, the grateful and gorgeous girl Jilly Buck (Lee Purcell) actually is escort girl of Texas's governor, the wiser Jilly will drives the jumpy Eddie to Laredo, take a bath and rest for a while, somehow Jilly sees in young Eddie her soulmate wondering with him could be happy as everybody else, too late.

It's a fourth time watching Eddie Macon's run, Kirk even older got a strong performance as a trickster and cunning detective, the highlight are split in two fabulous sequence the hanging at Potts's house-farm and the chase through Laredo streets, also eye-candy Lee Purcell in an outstanding acting as B-girl with golden heart, pay attention on small roles of John Goodman and J. T. Wash as well, aside the lousy premise the movie survives in two robust sequences.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 1988 / How many: 5 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 7.

"Eddie Macon's Run" is based on a book by James McLendon. And, while it doesn't say it anywhere in the film, his book MUST have been strongly inspired by Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" as the plots are often nearly the same. So, when you see Eddie, he's essentially Jean Valjean and Marzack is Javert. Of course, it's also very much like "The Fugitive" as well.

The story begins at the famous prison rodeo at the Huntsville, Texas prison. One of the participants is Eddie (John Schneider), an innocent man sent to prison. He isn't participating in order to win...he's using it as a chance to escape. And, once out of the prison, he's pursued by the determined and rather sociopathic Carl Marzack (Kirk Douglas)...a man willing to do just about anything to catch Eddie.

The trip across the border to Mexico won't be easy, as Eddie needs to run through Texas wilderness. But it's made a million times worse because, according to this film, Texas is filled with scum. He has to contend with some hicks who kidnap and try to hang him for kicks as well as a rapist who he stops when he hears a woman screaming for help!

This brings me to the way Texas is portrayed. In addition to rapists and murderers, the film features bigots who tell black jokes, corrupt cops, sexual harassers and just a whole mess of rednecks. You can sure tell that the film was NOT sponsored by the Texas Department of Tourism!! And, it also seemed like a series of cheap shots about Texans...which made me wonder if the writers had something in particular against the state!

Overall, enjoyable but certainly not very original. Also, the ending was poor...with Eddie approaching Marzack's car WITHOUT his gun and the twist after that which doesn't make any sense.