Taglines: He’s every woman’s dream and one woman’s nightmare.
Bird on a Wire movie storyline. Rick Jarmin (Mel Gibson) helped convict a drug-dealing DEA agent named Eugene Sorenson (David Carradine) and was placed in the witness protection program. Fifteen years later his former fiancée Marianne Graves (Goldie Hawn) crosses paths with him at a gas station in Detroit, Michigan. Rick refuses to recognize Marianne as the witness protection program does not allow contact with people from the witness’ previous life. If she recognizes him it may lead to Sorenson finding and killing him.
Sorenson has been let out of jail after serving his sentence, and with his partner Albert Diggs (Bill Duke), they are out to kill Rick in order to smooth the passage of their latest deal with drug dealers. Marianne has blown Rick’s cover and he makes a frantic call to his relocation officer for a new identity, only to discover that his old contact has retired and is later revealed to have Alzheimer’s.
His new contact is Joe Weyburn (Stephen Tobolowsky), a dirty cop in league with Diggs and Sorenson. Just as Marianne prepares to confront Rick they are surprised by Sorenson and Diggs, who show up at the gas station with guns blazing. They shoot Rick’s kindly old boss at the gas station, pinning the murder on Rick and Marianne, and Rick is shot in the buttocks.
A witness sees them and her rental car, a blue BMW, and they are forced to go on the run, which occupies most of the movie, during which they revisit some of Rick’s former life-in-hiding, including a beauty salon where he was a star employee, an old flame of a veterinarian who still wants to marry him, who owns an animal farm and operates on the wound in his behind, in her operating room. Rick and Marianne spend a night in a hotel room, where they later share their feelings and have passionate sex.
Bird on a Wire is a 1990 American action comedy film starring Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn, David Carradine, Bill Duke, Stephen Tobolowsky, Joan Severance, Harry Caesar, Alex Bruhanski, Clyde Kusatsu, Florence Paterson, directed by John Badham, and shot mainly in British Columbia, Canada. The title refers to the Leonard Cohen song “Bird on the Wire”. The alley motorcycle chase scene was filmed in Victoria, BC’s Chinatown, in Fan Tan Alley.
Bird on a Wire (1990)
Directed by: John Badham
Starring: Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn, David Carradine, Bill Duke, Stephen Tobolowsky, Joan Severance, Harry Caesar, Alex Bruhanski, Clyde Kusatsu, Florence Paterson
Screenplay by: Louis Venosta, David Seltzer
Production Design by: Philip Harrison
Cinematography by: Robert Primes
Film Editing by: Frank Morriss, Dallas Puett
Costume Design by: Eduardo Castro, Wayne A. Finkelman
Set Decoration by: Rose Marie McSherry
Art Direction by: Richard Hudolin
Music by: Hans Zimmer
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: May 18, 1990
Hits: 225
