Masterpiece, but with flaws
The film is so good that these flaws barely make a dent but when a film is great the interesting question becomes… ‘is there anything wrong with it?’
My first issue is ‘Kimble called Sykes’. We’re supposed to believe the otherwise cunning and devious Dr Nichols borrowed Kimble’s car and then called his hitman from Kimble’s car phone? This is such a dufus move, he instantly incriminates himself in that moment and this of course leads to his arrest in the end. Nichols is absurdly lucky the original detectives were too incompetent to spot this.
Secondly, the film centres around the killing of Kimble’s wife, but we never really discover why she was killed. We know the intended target was Richard, and we can assume she spotted the hitman and got the ‘no witnesses’ treatment, but it’s… vague. Indeed, when Kimble dangles Nichols off the building and asks ‘why Helen?’ we conspicuously never hear an answer.
The script had a notoriously messy history and they were even rewriting as the film was being shot. I think these issues would have been ironed out if there were some clearer decisions and more time.