Fled

Fled follows prisoners Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) as they’re forced to run for their lives after a prison escape goes sideways, with the somewhat convoluted storyline detailing the mismatched pair’s efforts at clearing their names while also avoiding a whole host of pursuers (including Will Patton’s determined cop Gibson). Filmmaker Kevin Hooks does a superb job of immediately drawing the viewer into the briskly-paced proceedings, as Fled boasts an often thrilling opening stretch that’s heightened by the affable efforts of its two stars (although it does remain fairly clear that Fishburne is in a whole other league from his onscreen partner). The action-packed narrative, which boasts gun battles and foot, car, and motorcycle chases, doesn’t contain much in the way of innovation or overt creativity (ie this ultimately feels like a pastiche of various other similarly-themed endeavors), and yet there’s little doubt that Fled‘s frenetic sensibilities prove effective at compensating for its handful of less-than-engrossing attributes. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that the supporting cast is riddled with engaging performances, with, especially, Patton’s spellbinding, scene-stealing turn remaining an ongoing highlight.) The end result is a better-than-expected ’90s thriller that holds up impressively well more than two decades later, and it’s impossible not to wish Hooks was still cranking out pictures of this ilk on a regular basis.

*** out of ****