I've commented on a lot of big-screen films, but this is the first TV movie I've commented on and there's a reason. It's one of the few that I still take time to watch when it comes on today. They usually show it on Lifetime nowadays b/c I guess it is seen as some sort of 'female' movie. I saw it when it first came out in the late 80s and have always liked it. It contains IMHO the best performance of the late Robert Urich's career. And I liked him in just about everything he did.
Urich plays Jack Bauer (that's right!) a successful, normal, rather average computer executive who seemingly has the quintessential life: a great job, a woman he loves, money, and a group of co-workers and employees who adore him. But there's a kind of emptiness and loneliness about him. Bauer used to be a promising football player in college, but he blew his knee out and it killed his dream of playing pro. Bauer is big and burly-looking on the surface, but he's really a pussycat (he wears glasses, is very polite and professional, and rather nerdy). It's amazing that the man who played tough guys Dan Tanna on Vegas and Spenser (what the hell was his first name?) on Spenser for Hire can be so utterly convincing as a nerdy computer geek, but he pulls it off.
The movie is about a poor, working-class waitress whose little girl has been kidnapped and she has been posting flyers of her daughter's photo around town. The woman is played by Megan Gallagher, an actress I remember quite well from the 80s who had always played more sexpot type characters. But here she is cast against type and is very effective as an ordinary (but still quite attractive) single mom.
Bauer sees the girl on subway (with another woman that he mistakes for her mother) and notices the flyer also after she disappears and when girl leaves her doll, he tries to get it to her. Social services makes him think the girl has been found, so when he tries to return it, the real mother has him arrested thinking he knows about the kidnapping. Everything is straightened out immediately, but b/c Bauer is the only one who has seen her daughter, she enlists his help to find her. After a series of confrontations, he reluctantly agrees.
This movie is just one that I like to watch whenever it comes on. It is primarily a mystery, but also it has elements of social class divisions (Bauer is successful, the waitress is not), the opposites-attract theory between Bauer and the waitress, and 2 characters that the viewer really likes, gets to know, and root for. Mainly, I liked the fact that they never forgot about the prime mission of these 2 people: to find the little girl before it was too late. But I still wanted them to get together in the end. Yet I think the ending was well done and appropriate. I know that Robert Urich was not some big shot Hollywood A-lister or even the biggest TV actor, but I always remember liking him in virtually everything he did. And this is the best thing he ever did for me.
REST IN PEACE MR. URICH.
Urich plays Jack Bauer (that's right!) a successful, normal, rather average computer executive who seemingly has the quintessential life: a great job, a woman he loves, money, and a group of co-workers and employees who adore him. But there's a kind of emptiness and loneliness about him. Bauer used to be a promising football player in college, but he blew his knee out and it killed his dream of playing pro. Bauer is big and burly-looking on the surface, but he's really a pussycat (he wears glasses, is very polite and professional, and rather nerdy). It's amazing that the man who played tough guys Dan Tanna on Vegas and Spenser (what the hell was his first name?) on Spenser for Hire can be so utterly convincing as a nerdy computer geek, but he pulls it off.
The movie is about a poor, working-class waitress whose little girl has been kidnapped and she has been posting flyers of her daughter's photo around town. The woman is played by Megan Gallagher, an actress I remember quite well from the 80s who had always played more sexpot type characters. But here she is cast against type and is very effective as an ordinary (but still quite attractive) single mom.
Bauer sees the girl on subway (with another woman that he mistakes for her mother) and notices the flyer also after she disappears and when girl leaves her doll, he tries to get it to her. Social services makes him think the girl has been found, so when he tries to return it, the real mother has him arrested thinking he knows about the kidnapping. Everything is straightened out immediately, but b/c Bauer is the only one who has seen her daughter, she enlists his help to find her. After a series of confrontations, he reluctantly agrees.
This movie is just one that I like to watch whenever it comes on. It is primarily a mystery, but also it has elements of social class divisions (Bauer is successful, the waitress is not), the opposites-attract theory between Bauer and the waitress, and 2 characters that the viewer really likes, gets to know, and root for. Mainly, I liked the fact that they never forgot about the prime mission of these 2 people: to find the little girl before it was too late. But I still wanted them to get together in the end. Yet I think the ending was well done and appropriate. I know that Robert Urich was not some big shot Hollywood A-lister or even the biggest TV actor, but I always remember liking him in virtually everything he did. And this is the best thing he ever did for me.
REST IN PEACE MR. URICH.