Pursued - Du entkommst mir nicht

The movie has its interesting points, but the writers left a lot of bad gaps in the plot. Ben Keats is a character who is too laid back, has no spine, and is apparently not very intelligent. It becomes quite an unbelievable story given that he is supposed to be one of the best management people in the United States.

The pace of the movie is quite slow, the twists are not unexpected, and basically its a movie about someone who is a complete pushover playing opposite a great Christian Slater role. He's comparable to his role in Very Bad Things, only the supporting cast is not even comparable.

This movie really has no redeeming qualities, and I somewhat wish I could just have the two hours of my life back that I lost. It's not Bellows' fault, the character is just terribly written.

Vincent Palmer (Christian Slater) is a deranged headhunter preying upon unsuspecting, talented CEOs. Vincent refuses to take "no" for an answer until his victims agree to leave their present jobs and accept multi-million-dollar offers that no one can refuse.

There were two good character profiles locked in conflict in the struggle between the hyperkinetic Vincent and Ben Keats (Gil Bellows). The two characters were so different that the contrast in the rapacious Vincent and the honest Ben made for a good melodrama set in corporate America. The integrity of Ben was a breath of fresh air in today's cutthroat executive world.

Director Kristoffer Tabori provided good pacing throughout the film. There was also a clever idea in the new industry headed by Ben and his boss (Michael Clarke Duncan) called Viztrak. Their invention is a serum intended for children in the ability to use satellite technology to track a lost child anywhere in the world. It was unfortunate that the Viztrak concept was not used more extensively in this action film.

Still, this was an entertaining and suspenseful low-budget film highlighted by the contrast of two men with completely different personality profiles and outlooks on life. Their struggle made for compelling drama.

Kristoffer Tabori's "Pursued", suffers from the screen play written by Maggie April. Mr. Tabori, an excellent actor, who has turned his attention to directing, seems to be out of his element with this movie. Thrillers that are based on revolutionary technology don't seem to translate well to the screen, as it's the case with "Pursued".

In fact, Mr. Tabori gets an over the top performance from Christian Slater, as the evil Vincent Palmer, who like all villains, seems to be miles ahead of everyone else in the story. On the other hand, Gil Bellows, who is the victim of Palmer, seems to be completely impotent to do anything, or even go to the police with the troubles he is facing. The problem seems to be exacerbated by Mr. Bellows' take on the character, as he makes him even weaker.

The result is an uneven film, that showed possibilities, but in the end, doesn't fulfill them. For a film that deals in cutting edge technology, one would think that Ben Keats, the genius behind the new program that will revolutionize cyberspace tracking, would have been aware of the spies out there, especially the scumbag that is making his life impossible, and invested in the best anti-spy software money could buy. The only point the film makes is how prevalent industrial spying is in the hands of people like the repulsive Vincent Palmer.

I like Christian Slater, I'm a fan. And I understand he may want to try out a bad-guy role like his co-star John Travolta in Broken Arrow, but this movie makes Slater annoying. Everywhere you turn - he's there with that grating voice and midwestern accent and pushy personality.

The movie is contrived and predictable. Yes, Slater did a good job of acting because his character evoked the desired emotions as the pursuer. But the pursuee scientist Ben Keats is a genius in the lab, but is so dumb outside as to be impossible. Never thinks to call the police. His wife is equally as dumb to believe obvious contrived stories of their chance meetings.

So about 1/3 of the way into the movie I stopped caring and just watched to see if the movie really was as predicable as I thought. I am so good, unfortunately, so I wasted 1 hour. Thank you, the movie is only 95 minutes.

I enjoyed the movie, but with some reservations. I've been a Slater fan for years and liked this role for him. My problem with this is the way the main characters (Gil Bellows) had such difficulty in coming to grips with industrial sabotage. This guy is a computer genius and works in electronics but it took almost half the movie to realize that he was bugged. This even after he was given warnings by a corporate surveillance expert. The way he let his wife and child interact with Slater's character was totally out of this world. Maybe I speak only for myself but if someone harasses me and mine, I'm not cordial and I will not allow my family to associate with them either. That's not anti-social, it's logical to protect their own family. The action was OK if anti-climatic and was very predictable. One area I didn't understand was the first CEO that was introduced and the murder of his wife. He was so worried about being arrested that he didn't seem irritated at Slater over the murder. Is this normal behavior or not? It kinda sets the setting for the whole movie. I did like what he told the lead when he confronted him, "sign with him or kill him." I guess it worked out that way. Overall not a bad movie.