Un flic aux trousses

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!

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.

Eddie Macon (John Schneider) escapes from prison and is desperate to rejoin his family. His wife Chris (Leah Ayres) helps him escape. In flashbacks, he suffers various setbacks and injustices leading to a twenty year sentence. He is pursued by Texas department of corrections officer Carl 'Buster' Marzack (Kirk Douglas) who caught him in a previous attempt.

There is a lot of selling in this movie. It's selling Schneider as a good guy. The blonde hair blue eyed couple is perfect. At the end of the day, he was drinking while driving and he did hit a guy. It's a corrupt world and he expects that his perfection shouldn't be touched by it. I would root for him more if the movie isn't trying so hard to sell his innocence. There is a good performance from Douglas and there is also a young John Goodman. One thing is for sure. Texas folks aren't coming off looking good in this one. Finally, it's unreasonable for him to be running except that it's in the title. His wife should have rented a car and left it at a designated location. At the very least, he should have stolen a car after the shooting. All in all, it's fine if not anything special.

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.

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

For a movie labeled chiefly as an action-adventure, some of the dialogue and plot gets quite syrupy (especially that one soundtrack song which airs when Eddie Macon is 'retro-daydreaming' past life events). However, the story line is good without being TOO predictable and the characters are well thawed out. It holds interest well. I first saw it about a year after it's initial release date and it has been a mild favorite of mine ever since. Worth checking out.