U.S. Marshals

Action, Thriller

Tommy Lee Jones	Chief Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard
Wesley Snipes	Mark Sheridan
Robert Downey Jr.	John Royce
Joe Pantoliano	Deputy Marshal Cosmo Renfro
Daniel Roebuck	Bobby Biggs
Tom Wood	U.S. Marshal Noah Woodrow Newman
LaTanya Richardson	Savannah Cooper
Irène Jacob	Marie
Kate Nelligan	U.S Marshal Catherine Walsh
Patrick Malahide	Lamb
Tom Wood (II)

Director	Stuart Baird
Producer	Keith Barish; Stephen Brown
Writer	Roy Huggins; John Pogue

An ultimately futile attempt to make lightning strike twice, this so-called spinoff from 1993's blockbuster The Fugitive avoids the label of "sequel" by forging ahead without the first film's star, Harrison Ford. The idea is to showcase the return of Tommy Lee Jones in his Oscar-winning role as tenacious U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, this time testing his mettle against a covert government operative (Wesley Snipes) accused of murdering two secret service attachés. Unfortunately, Jones and the entire cast have been trapped in a rambling plot, and the underdog status that made Ford such a compelling hero is sacrificed to an evenly matched and eventually tiresome game of cat and mouse, with a villain whose identity is far too predictable. With no dramatic buildup and several superfluous characters to distract its focus, the film's momentum plays out like a rote exercise compared to the high stakes of the earlier film. --Jeff Shannon