Review: Nowhere to Hide (1987)

Marine Major Daniel Hugh Kelly investigates the wreckage of a chopper accident and deduces that a faulty machine part is to blame. Unfortunately, somebody is not happy with Kelly going public with his findings, leaving his tough wife (Amy Madigan) and young son (Robin MacEachern) vulnerable to assassins in the employ of powerful figures who are part of a conspiracy. Maury Chaykin plays one of the assassins, John Colicos plays Kelly’s friendly commanding officer, Michael Ironside is the reclusive survivalist brother of Kelly, Chuck Shamata plays a Marine Sergeant, veteran bit player Garrick Hagon plays a sinister manufacturing company bigwig, and Clark Johnson plays an investigative journalist who gets everybody’s nose out of joint.

Produced by Roger Corman’s wife Julie, and directed by TV veteran Mario Azzopardi (the kinda OK Rutger Hauer thriller “Bone Daddy”), this 1987 Canadian action-thriller just isn’t what the cover promises. If you’re looking for 90 minutes of Amy Madigan taking up arms and knocking off the bad guys, you won’t get that until more than an hour in. Meanwhile, her poor son (played effectively by Robin MacEachern) goes through more hell in this film than any on screen kid I’ve seen outside of “Child’s Play” and “Sleepers”. I also have to say, I didn’t care for the thriller plot as scripted by Alex Rebar (David Hess’ directorial debut “To All a Good Night”) and George Goldsmith (the poor Stephen King adaptation “Children of the Corn”). For starters, based on what we see of the incident, I thought it was perfectly plausible that human error was to blame for the crash of two choppers and not faulty equipment. Flyboys got drunk and crashed their choppers seemed at least a possible scenario to me, so that bit of plotting wasn’t effectively conveyed on screen for my money, and the actors playing the characters in on the conspiracy tip off the audience far too early. They’re also overblown Tony Scott movie characters, with all of their silly surveillance tactics.

Amy Madigan is perfect casting here as the wife of a Marine (played by the less convincingly cast Daniel Hugh Kelly from “Cujo”), if you’ve seen “Streets of Fire” you know she’s more than believable as a tough woman who can handle herself in action. Unfortunately, whilst I liked that time was taken to introduce us to this community of characters, too long is taken to get to the part where Madigan has to defend herself and her child. Even when we do get to that portion, she’s being aided for a portion of it by Michael Ironside’s reclusive survivalist character. It’s as if the filmmakers didn’t have enough faith in the idea of Madigan being the proactive lead in an action film so they delay it for as long as they possibly can. So not only did I not care about the poorly conveyed conspiracy (being investigated by the most annoying nosy reporter character of all-time), you’re delaying the one thing that I was marginally interested in as advertised on the poster. Madigan spends most of the film either bewildered at what is going on, or running and hiding from the bad guys. If you’re not gonna sell me on your plot, at least give me some action or at least a pulse. Running and hiding aren’t sufficient action when you set Madigan up at the beginning as a tough, capable woman of action. Also, Michael Ironside only turns up after an hour into this 90 minute film so not only are you undermining the Madigan character by giving her an assist, you’re undermining his character as well by keeping him off screen too long to be properly fleshed out. Surly but well-meaning Ironside, an oily Garrick Hagon (in one of his bigger roles), and John Colicos (serving the exact function you expect) are solid support and the Canadian scenery is nice, but so what?

Amy Madigan is terrific, the film is slow, dumb, and underwhelming in the extreme. Imagine a John Grisham-style thriller directed by a guy who helmed several episodes of “Degrassi: The Next Generation”. That’s this movie.

Rating: C-