Wrongfully Accused

Infobox Film
name = Wrongfully Accused


caption =
director = Pat Proft
producer = Pat Proft
James G. Robinson
Bernd Eichinger
writer = Pat Proft
starring = Leslie Nielsen
Richard Crenna
Kelly LeBrock
Melinda McGraw
Michael York
music = Bill Conti
cinematography = Glen MacPherson
editing = James R. Symons
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = flagicon|USA August 21, 1998
runtime = 87 min.
country = Germany / U.S.
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
imdb_id = 0120901

"Wrongfully Accused" is a 1998 comedy film starring Leslie Nielsen as Ryan Harrison, a violinist who's been framed for murder by a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed man. The film was written, produced, and directed by Pat Proft. It pokes fun at "The Fugitive" and other films starring Harrison Ford.

Plot

As the film opens, we see Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) giving a violin concert. Afteward, Harrison goes to a party where we meet Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), a millionaire who sponsors Harrison's concerts, Goodhue's wife Lauren (Kelly LeBrock), and his possible mistress Cass Lake (Melinda McGraw). When Goodhue leaves, Lauren attempts to seduce Ryan.

The next evening when Harrison finishes his final concert he finds a note in his car which reads: "Ryan, darling, why are you leaving me, Hibbing is out of town, if I don't see you tonight I'm prepared to take my own life. I am desperate! And I'm out of milk, can you pick up a half gallon of 2% on the way? Lauren." When he goes to the Goodhue mansion (with milk, of course), he bumps into Sean Laughrea (Aaron Pearl) who just killed Goodhue (together with an unknown accomplice.) There's a fight between Sean and Ryan which Sean wins by throwing a table on Harrison. While fighting we discover that Sean is missing an eye, an arm, and a leg. When Ryan wakes up, he has a bow and arrow, a handgun and a machine gun in his hands, and there are cops all over the place. He is quickly arrested and convicted for murder. Harrison escapes when the bus that was to bring him to the prison slips over a banana peel, and almost gets hit by a train that is playing hide and seek with him. Harrison sets out to find who really killed Goodhue. When Lt. Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna) finds out Ryan is a fugitive, he vows to do whatever it takes to capture him.

Harrison enters "The Village of Hilltop", whose sign boasts "More Police Per Capita Than Any Other Town in The World", where he replaces his prison garb with fisherman clothing and leaves. He returns to the Goodhue mansion where he bumps into Cass, who is trying to get something from behind a portrait. She tells him she knows he's innocent, but she can't tell anything to the police about Lauren (who, according to her, is the killer) because she's her sister. Harrison replies, "I wish we could be friends, but women and me are like water and fire: wet and flammable." Then Harrison starts thinking about the party, remembers that Sean was the bartender to whom Cass gave a big amount of money. They hear the police arrive. Harrison disguises himself as a gardener and leaves the mansion with Lt. Falls in pursuit. They end up in a sewer, where a long chase ensues. Harrison gets to Cass's place. She explains that she wanted to kill Goodhue but she couldn't and threw the gun into the lake. And while Harrison becomes suspicous of Cass, Lt. Falls tries to bash in the door with a battering-ram (made from a Duraflame log). Harrison escapes through a window, landing in a hamper of used diapers.

Disguised as a doctor, Harrison enters a hospital and meets Cass, who says she followed the diaper truck. Sean enters to get a new leg that is really a cleverly-disguised machine gun. Harrison finds out that Sean and Lauren are related to Cass, and she can't choose between Harrison and her family.

Harrison follows them to a cornfield. Stupid decision, because when he gets there he is held under fire by Cass. Lauren tells him she shot Hibbing Goodhue, to which Harrison replies: "I should have guessed that you did it...but I didn't." Cass shoots him. A couple of minutes later, when Lauren leaves we see Harrison standing on the balcony saying, "When you shot me at point blank range, I knew you loved me."

Cass tells Harrison that Sean and Lauren want to kill their father, Sir Robert McKintyre (who is the secretary-general of the United Nations) at a party. Harrison, disguised in a Scottish kilt, sees Sean aiming his leg machine gun at McKintyre. Harrison screams: "Look out, he's got a leg!" Harrison hits him with a potted plant. Cass, Harrison and McKintyre escape but they are pursued. Lauren aims a Stinger missile launcher at them, but blows up Sean's van.

The cops come and arrest Sean and Lauren in time. Lt. Falls tells Harrison that he was "wrongfully accused". Then we see Harrison and Cass on a cruise ship, spoofing a "Titanic" scene, when they hit their heads on a low bridge.

Box Office Performance and Reception

The film opened on August 21, 1998 in 2,062 cinemas. On its opening weekend, it grossed USD $3,504,630 or approximately $1,699 per theatre. "Wrongfully Accused"'s overall gross was $9,623,329.

Reception

"Wrongfully Accused" got generally negative reviews. It received a 16% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Michael Dequina quoted: "An understandably tired-looking Leslie Nielsen should seriously consider retirement from this tired genre."Fact|date=July 2008

Trivia

*Many of the character names are based on names of actual places in Minnesota:
**Hibbing Goodhue — combination of Hibbing, Minnesota and Goodhue County, Minnesota
**Cass Lake — both a lake and city in Cass County, Minnesota
**Lt. Fergus Falls — Fergus Falls, Minnesota
**Sgt. Orono — Orono, Minnesota
**Dr. Fridley — Fridley, Minnesota
*Many of the places in the film directly reference Twin Cities-area locations, including Columbia Heights, Wayzata, Hilltop, Excelsior Bay, Stillwater Prison, etc.

*A reporter briefly shown in the film has the name Ruth Kimble. Kimble is the surname of protagonist in The Fugitive

*The poster for Ryan's concert "Lord of the Violin" is a parody of the 1996 poster for Lord of the Dance.

*When losing his bow during the concert, Ryan professionally takes up another from a sheath on his back after the fashion of famous rock drummers. Nick Mason does exactly that during the famous "Live at Pompeii" concert with Pink Floyd.

*Ryan Harrison's name is based on Jack Ryan, Harrison Ford's character in "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger", and Harrison Ford himself.

*The picture on the box of the home video is a parody to the cover of "The Fugitive" same as the tagline.

*In the "", Nielsen's character Frank Drebin mentions how painful it is to land on a bicycle without a seat. In Wrongfully Accused, Nielsen's character does just that after escaping from a bus/train collision.

*Filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia.

*The "Machine Gun Jig" scene was a takeoff on the highly successful show Riverdance.

*The car Cass cut off the police officers in is a Cadillac, but the officers refer to it as a Mercedes.
*A huge number of artificial limbs were used such as the antagonist and the train running scene.

*The usher gesturing viewers of Ryan's concert to their seats with a lightsaber is presumably poking fun at the Star Wars series of films.

*In one scene, he talks his way out of suspicion by referencing objects in view in a direct parody of "The Usual Suspects".

*While it film was a box office failure (grossing $9 million in the United States), it has made quite a popular resurgence on home video and especially DVD.

*The entire film is based around a plot called Hylander; the Hylander is the mascot of the high school that Pat Proft graduated from, Columbia Heights High School.

*One scene presenting Ryan dressed in kilt parodies the William Wallace character from the film "Braveheart".

*"The Village of Hilltop", whose sign boasts "More Police Per Capita Than Any Other Town in The World." In reality, the city of Hilltop, Minnesota has no police department.

Movies Parodied in this film

There are numerous films parodied in Wrongfully Accused and some of these include:
*"The Fugitive"
*"Patriot Games"
*"On the Waterfront"
*"Star Wars"
*"The Godfather"
*"Casablanca"
*"Falling Down"
*"Ben Hur"
*"Dirty Harry"
*"Superman"
*"Braveheart"
*"The Silence of the Lambs"
*"Die Hard"
*""
*"Anaconda"
*"Titanic"
*Riverdance
*"Charlie's Angels"
*"Fatal Attraction"
*"Children of the Corn"
*"Lord of the Dance"
*"The Seven Year Itch"
*"The Maltese Falcon"
*"Back to the Future"
*""
*"Field of Dreams"

External links

*Wrongfully Accused @ IMDb.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120901/
*Wrongfully Accused @ Rotten Tomatoes http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrongfully_accused/?page=2&critic=columns&name_order=asc
*Wrongfully Accused at Box Office Mojo http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wrongfullyaccused.htm