Striking Distance

Comic book cop thriller in Pittsburgh with Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker

RELEASED IN 1993 and written/directed by Rowdy Herrington, Striking Distance stars Bruce Willis as Tom Hardy, a Pittsburgh detective who's demoted to river rescue. A serial killer returns after a two-year absence and bodies of beautiful women start turning up in the river, all women whom Hardy used to date! Sarah Jessica Parker is on hand as Hardy's partner on the river, Jo Christman.

The movie has a bad reputation. Roger Ebert tore it to pieces, basically saying it was too derivative and by-the-numbers, and Willis himself said he hated it. I can understand criticism to a point. The story has a melodramatic comic-book vibe, which is obvious in the opening...

I'll be honest, I'm giving this 10 stars because my wife didn't like it... but she liked Hard Rain. So it's a spiteful thing.

But it's not bad, sort of my the numbers, and Tom Sizemore actually does a really good job in it. He's certainly the highlight of the film. And you don't really see many police thrillers about boat cops. And Sarah Jessica Parker is super cute in the movie, so it's worth watching for that.

That out of the way, you now who the killer is almost from the opening scene. That pretty much establishes more than it should, and then the bigger hints come just a little while later, so by the time you get into the bulk of the film, you already know who did it.

And by the way, did you know that you can blow up a car ...