Final Jeopardy (1985) Reviews

• You have to pay! One way or ANOTHER!

  JasonDanielBaker2014-11-14

  Hard-working Martin Campbell (Richard Thomas) and his charming wife Susan (Mary Crosby) hit the big city for crucial business meetings which could make or break his career. She goes shopping and they plan to rendezvous for dinner later. For his final meeting of the day he shows up at the wrong address. It also happens to be in the worst part of town and the joint closes at 7pm. Then Martin gets hit with another unwelcome realization - the parking lot he left his rental car in closed up even earlier. His wife shows up just in time to be stranded with him as the cab driver who brought her speeds off. The cabbie and seemingly everyone else in the movie knows the area to be bad news for every kind of reason. For the unlucky tourists it is something they will discover the hard way as locals of a malevolent intent detect their presence and elect to give them a hard time for ill-begotten fun and profit. A cinematic cliché used far too often is the one where city dwellers get stranded in a rural setting and get brutalized by demented inbreds. The juxtaposition wherein small-town folks find horror in the big city is far more believable and I speak as a city dweller who dreads going certain places downtown. Numerous big North American cities are host to large critical masses of people on illegal drugs or off of necessary prescription drugs or both. Eventually after a nightmare of an evening Marty comes to blame himself because it is accurate that he is at fault. Susan tells him the mistake he made was one anybody could have made. In the year in which this film was produced it might well have been a mistake anybody could have made. But we have cellphones now, Google maps, GPS etc now. The suspense depicted here seems very real. Richard Thomas - long typecast as a wholesome farm-boy from his years on 'The Waltons' gave one of his better performances in this production.Not only are there solid performances by the leads but the supporting cast is particularly convincing. Michael Cavanaugh, Jordan Charney, Jeff Corey and Jonathan Goldsmith were always great.

• A Dramatic Out of Towners

  spideyy2003-12-13

  I started watching this movie right after it started, so I didn't know what it was called or anything. I was on a cruise ship, and it was 2:30 in the morning, and there were no commercials, so until I got back home, I had no idea what it was. Thank God for IMDB. Anyway, I thought it was a serious dramatic remake of "THE OUT OF TOWNERS". It had almost the same plot, only not played for laughs. Every thing was played for suspense, and with Richard Thomas in the lead it was even more dramatic. I like watching him act, but he is so over the top dramaticly. But that's why I like watching him. The movie wasn't great, but it didn't suck either. I had to stay up till the end, because I was interested in the outcome, so that says something. It revolves around Thomas' character going to the big city for a job interview, and he goes to the wrong bar to meet his would be boss. By the time he finds this out, it's an hour after the time they were suppossed to meet, and his car is locked in the parking area until six the next morning. His wife comes to meet him, and before he can tell her to stop the cab she brought, it leaves, and they are stranded. Now why they just didn't walk back to a more populated area is beyond be. I've been to New York and Chicago, and you can always get to a populated area, especially at seven in the evening, and also the fact that Thomas drove his car to the bar, that alone should say he knows how to get back. But then we wouldn't have the next hour of the movie where they get chased by gangs, dogs, and other such riff-raff. All in all, not a great movie, but like I said it didn't suck. Spideyy

• Great little on the run at night movie

  NewYorkRipper2017-07-29

  A movie with tension from beginning to end, with an interesting method of fading to still black and white image every time there is a scene change or the location is changed. This works all but once, when it is used in the middle of a busy chase scene towards the end. If you like a movie set almost entirely at night, with some very lost and scared protagonists on the run and trying to make it back home, then this is one to check out.

• Rare classic

  visualizeasian2014-05-31

  At the time this movie was probably forgotten among the sea of classics from the 80s. While I try not to spoil the plot of a thriller such as this, in some cases it is inevitable so please read cautiously. Richard Thomas and the lovely Mary Crosby play a small town couple (Marty and Susan Campbell) who are visiting the city. Marty is here to create some business while Susan has come along for shopping and company. The build up to the drama and threat that follows is rather well crafted, for example Marty's navigation and direction taking skills are shown to be 'not good' from the start and while his character is smart, his vulnerability due to the quick emotional decisions he makes its portrayed very well. Richard Thomas is no stranger to playing multi-layered characters and his performance in this raises the movie above the TV level standards. I also liked the performance of Mary Crosby as Susan, she brings a very lovable innocence and strength to the character, again making the chase scenes more thrilling because you care about her character so much. While some of the scenes do not follow the logic you think they should (ie why didn't they persist in calling a taxi or persist in calling the police? etc) the performances of the two characters are so well crafted by Richard Thomas and Susan Crosby (there is definitely a chemistry between them which is great on screen.) that you will care about Marty and Susan and their decisions become more believable within the context of the story. There are some thrilling set pieces, such as the sewer sequence, the chase on the subway train, the phone booth sequence and the final chase. Definitely worth a watch - a popcorn evening thriller with some nice drama.

• Not as bad as some reviews suggest.

  englisch_im_taunus2018-08-28

  Having read some devastatingly bad reviews of this film, I began to wonder whether my interpretation of it might be correct. I have often had dreams in which I have been in a strange place and was trying to return home. Not quite as dramatic as in this movie, but phones don't work, people don't respond to me or give me the wrong information, buses stop in the middle of nowhere, nothing goes right, everything is weird and I feel helpless and lost. I felt throughout this whole film that it was intended to be such a dream (or rather a nightmare) sequence, and lo and behold, when daylight comes, everything is back to normal - which is just how you feel when you wake up from such a dream. If you see it like that, and not as a believable portrayal of something that might actually happen, it should fare better on the points scale. Only thing was I thought that the character of Susan was too happy-go-lucky in the face of so many dangerous situations. She was always like 'Oh, I'm OK', even when being pursued by a gang of thugs or wandering aimlessly through the sewers, always looking as pretty as a picture, with not a hair out of place. The film certainly managed to keep my attention long enough to watch it all in one sitting, which is unusual for me!