Bird on a Wire (1990)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Rick Jarmin	Mel Gibson
Marianne Graves	Goldie Hawn
Eugene Sorenson	David Carradine	½
Albert Diggs	Bill Duke	½
Jow Weyburn	Stephen Tobolowsky
Rachel Varney	Joan Severance
Lou Baird	Jeff Corey

Review

The action-comedy genre was arguably close to its zenith when John Badham took a trifling, almost unwritten script, assembled Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn, and crossed his fingers that star power would suffice to make a good film. It doesn't quite, but to the extent that Bird on a Wire actually does work, it is because of Gibson and Hawn's charisma (if not chemistry), and a carefree and fun mood which makes this a partly enjoyable experience. When it is not enjoyable, however, it is excruciating, with tacky, tasteless action-scenes in which menacing, cardboard bad-guys keep spraying and chasing our ever-fleeing couple with a variety of guns and vehicles. It would have been ultra-violent had it not been for the fact that the bad-guys are clinically unable to hit their targets. If you enjoy an endless array of virtually plotless chases, Bird on a Wire will probably work all the way for you. If not, it offers the odd useful scene here and there and a handful of great laughs. Hawn looks incredibly good in one of her last films as an eye-catcher.