A Marine on death row is recruited by a shadowy U.S. military officer as part of a top-secret ops team, then gets framed for murder when the team and its officer set him up as the fall guy f... Read allA Marine on death row is recruited by a shadowy U.S. military officer as part of a top-secret ops team, then gets framed for murder when the team and its officer set him up as the fall guy for the assassination of the First Lady.A Marine on death row is recruited by a shadowy U.S. military officer as part of a top-secret ops team, then gets framed for murder when the team and its officer set him up as the fall guy for the assassination of the First Lady.
- Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination total
- Stephen Barnes
- (as Simon Baker-Denny)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
It's fairly ridiculous. Jon Voight has an absurd accent to which he is fully committed. Jill Hennessey plays most of her part in what appears to be a summer pajama top (and wonderfully perfect makeup). The military has whatever resources they need to advance the plot, but never enough to crush the hero. The twists are visible from miles ahead. But it remains entertaining.
I think that it is an advantage to the watchability that the hero (Keenan Ivory Wayans) is also the writer. Banter comes out more believable when the writer has to put it in his own mouth.
Written and starring Wayans this has a bit of a vanity project about it. The story is ok at the most basic level - everyone likes a good conspiracy story and a good action movie. However this has so many elements that are just plain daft. One scene in particular - where Wayans is recognised on the street and is chased by about 600 people along a motorway, causing a major pileup, I assumed that this was a dream sequence if was so daft - but sadly it wasn't. This is stretched out throughout the whole film in that whole scenes are daft - the main problem is that Dunn just walks into any building he wants unnoticed. He gets past major security anywhere, he even gets into a high security military unit by hiding in the boot of a car. You can see Wayans' idea was good at the start but he doesn't know where to draw the line - the story is full of wish-fulfilment action scenes (jumping off a building with a parachute - without explaining how Americas most wanted got it from!).
Wayans is not great, he does OK at the start but his one-liners are weak and his performance as an unstoppable force towards the end doesn't set well with the story. Voight is absolutely terrible, what was he thinking. His character is full of stupid characteristics and never comes across as menacing or believable. Paul Sorvino is OK as the FBI director, but with this and Knock Off, he must really wish that someone would make a Goodfellas 2! Hennessey is ok as the only female role in the film, but she doesn't have much to do. Eric Roberts wisely takes an un-credited role and does OK with it. Robert Culp rounds out quite a famous cast - which is surprising when you consider the material.
Overall this is enjoyable for the most part. However most of it is daft and any clever bits are lost in a sea of stupidity. 5 out of 10 for effort.
Dunn who was sentenced to be executed by an army court-martial for killing his superior officer, who ordered him to shoot a 10 year-old Iraqi boy, during the Gulf War is rescued as he's being sent to Levenworth Prisons death row. Dunn is to be recruited by this gong-ho and very unstable nut-job Gen. Woodward, Jon Voight,in a complicated scheme to off big time pharmaceutical businessman Donald Bickhart.Robert Culp. Being the designated hit-man in this covert operation Dunn never gets off a shot as the First Lady is gunned down by an unknown gunman and he ends up being accused of her murder.
On the run with his face plastered all over the newspapers and on TV Dunn seems top have no trouble at all eluding the police and US Army. kidnapping hospital administrator Dr. Victoria Constantini, Jill Hennessy, Dunn has his ace in the hole that can prove his innocence, her video tape of the assassination. It's then that he stupidly hands the tape over to a reporter who's even more nuts then he is by not bothering to make a copy of it and then having the tape turned over to Gen. Woodward! The every person who set Dunn up and more then anything else in the world wan't him dead!
The movie "Most Wanted" get more and more outrageous as it goes along with Dunn on the run and not bothering to even keep out of sight with the police army CIA FBI with even almost half the population of L.A is out looking for him with a 10 million dollar reward on his head. With the help of a first very reluctant Victoria Dunn tracks down the reason for the First Ladies murder to non-other then Bickhart, the person he was to assassinate. Bickhart together with Gen. Woopdword was involved in some kind of secret experiment on the men of the 82nd Air-Borne division during the Gulf War that had almost all of them end up either dead or hospitalized for life. The First Lady a champion for veterans causes was about to expose this fiendish experiment to the public and had to be silenced and Dunn, a perfect pasty, was the one picked to be framed for her murder.
If he didn't have enough trouble already Dunn who thought that CIA Deputy Director Rackmill, Paul Sorvino, was on his side in this whole mess found out later to his, but nobody else's, surprise that he wasn't. Rockmill, like Gen. Woodward, was setting the guy up in order to get the 10 dollar million reward, offered by Bickhart, for his capture dead or alive. Dunn for his part being very experienced in electronics explosives and all around covert activities ,including the unique ability of being able to fool people to who he is without even having a disguise on , gets to the bottom of what Gen. Woodward & Bickhart are up to. It's then that he plays them off against each others without them even knowing it. By the time the movie is finally over with about as much explosions car chases and all around destruction that you would see in half a dozen of these type of mindless actions flicks Dunn or Keenen Ivory Wayans is off to the races with him free as a bird. Dunn is no longer wanted by him being falsely reported reported on the TV news as being captured as executed by the government. I could only hope that some other innocent pasty, like Dunn, wasn't the one who took his place in Levenwoths execution chamber.
Did you know
- TriviaThis was the third consecutive action film which Keenen Ivory Wayans had starred in. The others include A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994) and The Glimmer Man (1996) co-starring Steven Seagal.
- GoofsThe plan for Gunnery Sergeant Dunn (Keenen Ivory Wayans) to fire a bullet made of ice is pure Hollywood. If you could manage to mount a bullet made of ice in a shell casing & chamber it in a rifle, when you fired it, the shock & heat generated from the gunpowder in the shell casing would destroy the ice bullet before it even got to the end of the barrel. The Mythbusters TV show actually tried it & the ice bullet just vaporized.
- Quotes
Sergeant James Dunn: You live alone?
Dr. Victoria Constantini: No, I, I have a boyfriend. He's a cop!
Sergeant James Dunn: You don't have a boyfriend.
Dr. Victoria Constantini: How do you know?
Sergeant James Dunn: There's five empty buckets of Häagen-Dazs in your trash, your legs are stubbly and your hair color needs a touch-up.
- ConnectionsFeatured in MythBusters: Hollywood on Trial (2005)
- How long is Most Wanted?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $25,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $6,391,946
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,836,490
- Oct 12, 1997
- Gross worldwide
- $11,838,218
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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