Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1993

The Contenders:

Dave
In the Line of Fire
Philadelphia
The Piano (winner)
Sleepless in Seattle

Secret Service Man

Film: In the Line of Fire
Format: DVD from Polo Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

Certain genres follow certain formulas. We all know this. It’s what allows writers and directors to play with those very conventions. I get frustrated by movies that play so closely to an established formula for story. I’m always a little disappointed when a film lands so closely to the formula that I can predict where it’s going to go or that I know what major events are going to happen during the running time. In the Line of Fire is a movie that adheres pretty closely to a given formula. I didn’t predict every moment of it, but there weren’t a lot of surprises here.

Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a Secret Service agent. In fact, he’s the only active agent who has ever “lost” a president; Horrigan (a digitally inserted, much younger Eastwood) was in Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas. These days, Horrigan is still working the field. As the film starts, we’re introduced to Al D’Andrea (Dylan McDermott), his new partner. The two bust a drug operation, a bust in which D’Andrea is almost killed.