The Fugitive vs. Minority Report

Funnily enough, these two films have a lot in common:

1. Both have a sympathetic protagonist who's been wrongly accused of a murder he didn't commit.

2. Both stories spend the bulk of their time following the protagonist as he tries to prove his innocence.

3. Both stories go out of their way to make their protagonists UNUSUALLY sympathetic. In The Fugitive, Kimble risks his life to save the wounded guard in the bus AND risks his freedom by helping the kid with the crushed chest. In Minority Report, Anderton is one of the most sympathetic protags ever created due to the kidnapping of his son.

4. Both protags are pursued by an apparent antagonist who is highly competent. In the Fugitive, Gerard's competence is shown several times: he knows which judge will approve his warrant, he's a strong leader leading a strong team, he determines that Kimble is in Chicago and not St. Louis. In Minority Report, Witwer finds the drugs in Anderton's apt., realizes that Agatha is in the murder room and is coming to get her, finds Rufus, etc.

5. Both protags are opposed by a REAL antagonist who poses as a close friend but betrays them.

6. Both protags get in trouble because they pursue a secret, the implications of which are far greater than they knew.

7. Both films use timelocks as story devices. In The Fugitive, timelocks include: Kimble escaping from the bus before the train hits and printing the list of amputees before he's discovered. In Minority Report, timelocks include: the opening sequence (i.e., stopping the husband from scissor murdering his wife), having to wait 12 hours for his eyes to heal and the deadline for killing Leo Crowe.

8. Both films have weak third acts and weak climaxes. In the Fugitive, the tainted drug twist was way too complicated, the connection to betrayer Dr. Nichols was too tenuous and the actual climax was run of the mill, although redeemed slightly by Gerard's completion of his character arc, revealed by his removing the handcuffs from Kimble. Minority Report was equally disappointing with the "Anne Lively trying to get her pre-cog daughter back" subplot failing to impress.

9. Both films user parallel plotlines, one for the protag and one for the antag. Note that the existence of a strong antagonist does not necessarily presume parallel plotlines; Kramer vs Kramer, Butch Cassidy and Chinatown all have strong antagonists but single plotlines.

10. Both have some great action sequences. The Fugitive has the train wreck and Peter Pan from the dam. Minority Report has several but the best is Anderton and Agatha's pre-cogging their way through the mall.

11. Both films are primarily chases with the film level chase broken into sequence-level subchases.