Striking Distance (1993)

Elevator Pttch: Someone in Pittsburgh is assassinating young women and dumping the bodies in the river. When detective Tom Hardy suggests that the killer may be a policeman the police authorities demote him to be part of the river patrol, but this only seems to put him in the path of the killer, possibly putting his new crewman (woman) for whom he develops feelings in the sights of the murderer.

Content: Women are killed but off screen. There is some non revalatory sex, SJP in her underwear briefly. There are car chases, boat chases and car and boat chases. Some gunfire mostly using handguns. We spend time on the detective’s houseboat and in the police station where people shout at each other a lot.

A View: This film was generally disliked by the critics only achieving 17% on Rotten Tomatoes and failing to make its production costs back. Willis apparently appologised for it later in a TV interview. By now in 2019 he has an enormous back catalogue so probably choose almost any other of his films for a more enjoyable experience, although I am realising that he does best when he is more or less sending himself up.

Additional Info: The film was shown to a test audience who are said to have hated it, the reaction ascribed to Bruce Willis’s interference with the script. Hence extensive rewrites and reshoots were required including some to make the sex scenes sexier – unsuccessful, in my view.