Witness [DVD]

Description

Product Description When a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) witnesses a murder in a big city train station, detective Jon Book (Harrison Ford) is given the job of protecting him. Suspecting that the murder was part of a police conspiracy, Book retreats to the small farming community where the boy lives. As time passes, and despite massive cultural difference, the detective falls in love with the boy's widowed mother (Kelly McGillis). 'Witness', the first Hollywood film from Australian director Peter Weir, was nominated for eight Oscars and won two (editing and original screenplay). desertcart.co.uk Review When Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy travelling with his mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis), witnesses the murder of a police officer in a public restroom, he and his mother become the temporary wards of John Book (Harrison Ford), a detective who's been assigned to solve the crime. After suspect line-ups and mug-shot books yield nothing, Samuel, in the most memorable scene of the film, recognizes the murderer as a narcotics agent whose picture he sees in the precinct. Once Book realizes that the police chief is in on it, too, he whisks Samuel and Rachel back home to Amish country, where he himself goes into hiding as a plain Amish man. Witness' juxtaposition of the life of the Amish and the violence of inner-city police corruption work surprisingly well for the story, and Kelly McGillis as the falling in love widow gives an almost perfect performance. Directed by Peter Weir, the film is extremely successful in drawing the viewer into its world and, accordingly, is immensely entertaining. The only thing that mars its polish is the one-dimensional, almost cartoonish handling of the upper-echelon police corruption--a subtler, more realistic treatment of this aspect of the story would have rendered the film near perfect. --James McGrath, desertcart.com