Striking Distance

Introduction

 
Tom Hardy (Bruce Willis) used to be a homicide detective until he got tangled up in the unsolved Polish Hill killings where a series of women are strangled and dumped.  In the middle of the investigation Tom Hardy finds himself testifying against his partner and cousin Jimmy Detillo (Robert Pastorelli) after Jimmy severely assaulted a suspect, turning most of the Pittsburgh Police Dept against him.
 
Hardy believes that the Polish Hill killer is a cop as he always manages to stay one step ahead of the police and evade capture but one night it looks as if he's made a massive error and a massive car chase ensues, with Hardy and his father, homicide Captain Vince Hardy (John Mahoney), in hot pursuit.  Despite being hemmed in, the killer miraculously escapes for a shortlived second chase that ends in a crash with Hardy unconscious with a smashed leg, the killer nowhere in sight and his father shot dead.
 
As if that wasn't enough, partner Jimmy decides he wants to commit suicide by jumping off a huge bridge.  Along with Jimmy's father Nick (Dennis Farina) and brother Danny (Tom Sizemore), Hardy tries to talk Jimmy down but he jumps anyway and his body is never found.  As is the way of these things, everyone blames Hardy…
 
Two years later, Hardy finds himself on the river as part of the River Rescue department, alternatively known disparagingly as 'water rats'.  Breaking in new partner Jo Christman (Sarah Jessica Parker), Hardy begins to discover a series of murdered women in the river.  Despite being shot rather than strangled, Hardy believes that the Polish Hill killer is back, despite a man already being convicted of those crimes.
 
Again, no one wants to listen to Hardy, but he's a maverick and will do whatever it takes to find out what's going on…
 
 

Picture

 
Picture is pretty solid but overall fairly unremarkable for blu-ray.  On the other hand it's a vast improvement over DVD.
 

Extras

 
Only two extras on this disc, although I'd hesitate to call them that.  The first, bizarrely, is an option to mute the sound effects on the main menu.  As this only consists of two sounds, this seems a little odd to say the least.  The second is a trailer, but isn't for the main feature, being instead a trailer for blu-ray itself, although it does focus on some of the blu-ray features such as bookmarking, games and BD-Live, which some general viewers may not be aware of.
 

Overall

 
I remembered seeing this back in the 90's and feeling a little underwhelmed, so thought I'd give it another shot with its release on blu-ray.  I wish I hadn't bothered.  Other than ol' string vest himself, this is a run of the mill thriller that seems to have the production values of a minor TV 'tec drama rather than a film.  The plot just kind of plodded along with various twists that just brought a groan and a sigh rather than a gasp.
 
Only good things really was seeing Dennis Farinna who I'm watching currently on Hallmark in Law &  Order (where he's much better), John Mahoney who sadly is only in it for about ten minutes before he's bumped off, a young Tom Sizemore and a rather naïve if fetching performance from Sarah Jessica Parker.
 
The script plods along and doesn't really go anywhere fast.  The whole family of cops thing isn't really used properly once the idea is established and the whole thing just feels like a turgid mess that possibly looked okay on paper but doesn't work on film.
 
I know that this film has some fans, but I'm not one of them