“The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight-Part 87”- Nick Nolte’s Three Fugitives

 

DVD Review

 

By Sam Lowell

 

Three Fugitives, starring Nick Nolte, Martin Short, and cute little girl, based on the French version of the film directed by Francis Veber, 1989  

Hey robbing banks, armed robbery if you are a pro and value your life as well as the ability to spent whatever dough you might grab, is serious business which in not for the faint-hearted, not for amateurs. Just ask Danny Lucas, the guy played by Nick Nolte when he was in his prime, in Three Fugitives the 1989 remake of a French version of the film by the same director, Francis Veber. Well maybe you don’t want to ask Danny since he had just done a nickel in a Washington state pen for one of his transgressions against the public order. But Danny with fourteen robberies under his belt knows that a half-baked guy like Ned, played by Martin Short, is definitely out of his league. Had made every mistake in the book, in this comedic sent-up of a befuddled arm robber with a valiant heart.

Yeah, Danny will be the first to tell you that Ned should have stayed in the minor leagues, started out slow, maybe worked the “clip” that every twelve-year old kid, every twelve-year old kid that came up the hard way in my old neighborhood worked on his way to the “bigs”’ That “clip” noting but the old five-fingered “discount” at Woolworth’s or some jewelry store grabbing a cheapjack ring for some flame that had enflamed a twelve year old heart. But see Ned didn’t ask him, had his own agenda.

Taking a page out the “gang that couldn’t shoot straight” story line though Ned, for very personal and perhaps even very rational reasons given his situation, jumped prematurely to the majors. Tried to pull an armed bank robbery on the very day Danny was getting out of the slammer and was innocently trying to set up a bank account when Ned hits the door of that misbegotten bank. From there it is all downhill as Ned commits every mistake in the armed robbery book and takes old Danny down with him. Takes him unwittingly as “hostage” which allows the police, well acquainted with Danny’s MO, to assume this was Danny’s caper. That makes two fugitives. The third?  Like I said Ned had his maybe rational reasons for going over the top when given his personality he probably would have had a hard time strong-arming kids for their milk money. See the third fugitive was his cute as can be daughter who needed plenty of help, needed special schooling since she had clammed up tight ever since Ned’s wife, her mother had died a couple of years before the robbery.  

Trying to save that daughter, the bonding of old softie Danny and that daughter really is what drives the rest of the film after Ned’s botched robbery and his “kidnapping” of her from an orphanage put this trio on the lam. You know once the adorable little girl came into play that nothing terrible was going to happen to the trio, that they would weather the police blockades, police manhunts and whatever else polite society had thrown up to protect itself from hardened felons with no sweat. And maybe along with the over the top slapstick antics about who was whose hostage and who was who on the mastermind of the plot question this “feel good” movie just didn’t feel right, seemed forced by its thin plot. Still I was glad they got away, the three fugitives got away, in a funny ending, unfortunately not the fate of some of my corner boys in the old days who tried for the “bigs.” Take this one or leave it.