About the last thing I expected "The Chase" to be was some ensemble piece. I just thought it was going to be some run-of-the-mill TVM about er, police embarking in a chase of a dangerous felon(Casey Siemaszko, who by the way, is great in his role) and maybe a little bit leading up to that like why the villian did the thing he did.
Yes, "The Chase" has a chase that Phillip Hutchinson, a dangerous escapee from a Texas prison who has come to Denver(for whatever reason) causes. It has a little bit of pre-'chase' information on Phillip, like the police discussing his violent history, Phil engaging in some small crimes(he passes a bad check, robs a couple of places and steals cars), and even Phil trying to have some vague social life(under the alias of "Mark") and hanging around with a "trailer trash" couple and getting a vague 'love interest' (Sheila Kelly, who was Siemaszko's love interest in the film "Breaking In") who questions "Mark's" odd behavior and the fact that he hides his pictures.
In honesty, that would have been enough to make the movie itself. Huthcinson is an interesting character, and I liked watching his gradual descent into madness, which is basically what caused the actual chase in the first place. Yet, in an odd move, Hutchinson's story is only one of about seven. Not only do we learn about him, we also get lead into the lives of a soon to retire cop(Ben Johnson) and his son who wants to be just like him(Anthony Tyler Quinn); a pregnant, abused, drug addict(Megan Follows) trying to better her life; a shy, overweight bank clerk (Ricki Lake) dealing with her self-image problems (Nada Dispovitch, who is seriously underbilled, appears as Lake's fellow employee in confidante and is quite good); a news crew, complete with a helicophter (sp?) pilot who wants to be a weather man; and a poor old man and his retarded daughter trying to make ends meet. What ties these characters together is that they all come in contact with Hutchinson in one way or the other and it does impact their lives.
The only problem with this is that some of these connections, particularly that of Ms. Follows, are extremely weak, so why is so much of the plot devoted to her? I would have liked to see a few of her scenes given away to the old man(who is far more relevant) or to Hutchinson, who has many unexplained actions(at least it is more-or-less stated that nobody knows why he does the things he does, but I still would have liked to have learned a little more about him, like why he was so defensive about his pictures, and why he lied about his mother). It would have been a little more benefitial to learn more about the police's developing investigation, and why Hutchinson was able to alude them(they weren't the brightest, the fact becoming apparent when they described Hutchinson as "5'11," which, without meaning to get all nauseating, is not even close), or I don't know. What I think would have worked best would have either been turning this into a 2-part miniseries, or trimming some of the plotlines down so that the more important characters had more time. Nevertheless, it was an interesting concept and the movie wasn't "ruined" by the many characters. It helped that the acting was good, with Siemaszko, especially, who just got better and better and Hutchinson got worse; and Johnson, Quinn, Fellows, the "trailer trash" friend(I did not catch who played him) and the aforementioned Dispovitch were all quite effective. The only other weak link a few cliches thrown into the script(some movie in the world has the silly line "there are better ways of going about this than by stripping away the dignity of your fellow man..." It is not "The Chase," but I wouldn't have been surprised, had it been), but they were forgiven when all of the characters finally began to fall into place.
Anyway, no matter what shortcomings it might have had, "The Chase" is still better than the average TV movie and is worth watching.
