Stephen Hopkins's ostensible salute to the Boston P.D. Bomb Squad frankly (and a tad hypocritically) hopes to hold its audience in their seats only with the promise of a forthcoming explosion. And another and another and another. Five major ones in all, padded a little by flashback replays. The bomber is a Northern Irish terrorist (Tommy Lee Jones, with a brogue several sizes too large) out to avenge himself on a former cohort and traitor-to-the-cause (Jeff Bridges, not a trace of a lilt) who has been expiating past sins by defusing bombs for a living. (The Irish element is pervasive and exclusive: U2 on the stereo, Kelly-green shutters and window trim, lines like "Oh, sweet Jesus!") The lone bomber, a freelancer with no affiliations to known groups, turns up in a janitor's uniform to eavesdrop on strategy sessions at police headquarters; and when the hero's new bride and stepdaughter go into hiding (after the murder of the hero's dog, Boomer), the bomber finds them, not by any followable trail, but simply materializing as though by teleportation -- it's that kind of movie. And his final "masterpiece," a planned display of Fourth-of-July fireworks, is given a triggering mechanism of Rube Goldberg whimsicality, for the private amusement of himself and the privileged spectator. More probably just himself. With Suzy Amis, Forest Whitaker, Lloyd Bridges. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
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