Runaway Jane
USA/Canada 2001. Director: Kevin Elders
Cast: Teri Hatcher, Maurice Dean Wint, Christina Cox, Rob Lowe
Aka: Jane Doe

Now here's one thing I hadn't expected. Peppy Teri Hatcher as an action woman. The film starts with her character Jane Doe getting a phone call from someone who claim to have kidnapped her son, but if she does this and that no one will get hurt. Jane follows the instructions carefully and suddenly she is the main suspect for a murder. Someone has set her up and now she is hunted by the cops as well as by someone who wants her ass dead real good. Meat out the plot with industrial espionage, computer viruses, high-tech weaponry, back-stabbing CIA agents and a gross face-in-toilet joke.

The interesting premise, largely told in real time (but not in one take, although that would have been interesting and quite possible), kick the film off to a promising and intriguing start but it quickly becomes just another forgettable and slightly confusing routine action flick with all the slick trademarks you've come to expect from a Joel Silver production, even if this is a smaller one. Teri Hatcher is quite good here, though, in what is probably her most worthwhile film role yet aside her beloved turn as Superman's girlfriend in TV's Lois and Clark. The role of Jane Doe here is perfect for her as it is a mature character but with very little luggage. A blank when we first meet her. What we see is what we know, thus her name Jane Doe. It's almost as if Hatcher too wants to start from blank and prove she isn't the lousy actress and TV bimbo everyone claim her to be. Judging by this film, she isn't anymore.


© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.