Wrongfully Accused is a 1998 comedy film starring Leslie Nielsen as a man who has been framed for murder by a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed man. The film was written, produced, and directed by Pat Proft and is a parody of the 1993 film The Fugitive.
Plot
World-famous violinist Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) is seen giving a concert. Afterward, he goes to a party where he meets Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), a millionaire who sponsors Harrison's performances, as well as Goodhue's seductive wife Lauren (Kelly LeBrock) and his possible mistress Cass Lake (Melinda McGraw)..
The next evening 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? Yours in adultery, Lauren."
When he goes to the Goodhue mansion (with milk, of course), he bumps into Sean Laughrea (Aaron Pearl) who has just killed Goodhue (together with an unknown accomplice). There is a violent fight. Harrison discovers during it that Sean is missing an eye, an arm, and a leg.
When he wakes up, Harrison 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. He almost gets hit by a train that is playing hide-and-seek with him. Lieutenant Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna) arrives on the scene, takes charge, barks out orders and vows to do whatever it takes to capture the fugitive.
Harrison flees to "The Village of Hilltop," whose sign boasts "More Police Per Capita Than Any Other Town in The World." He replaces his prison garb with fisherman clothing and leaves, but not before running into America's Most Wanted host, John Walsh in the store.
He returns to the Goodhue mansion where he encounters Cass, who is trying to retrieve something from behind a portrait. She tells him she knows he's innocent and believes Lauren is the killer, but refuses to say anything to police because Lauren is her sister. Harrison replies, "I wish we could be friends, but women and me are like water and fire: wet and flammable."
Harrison starts having flashbacks to the party, remembers that Sean was the bartender to whom Cass gave a great amount of money. The police arrive. Harrison disguises himself as a gardener and leaves with Fergus Falls in hot pursuit. They end up in a sewer, where a long chase ensues.
Cass explains that she wanted to kill Goodhue but scouldn't and threw the gun into the lake. Fergus 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. His stench causes flowers to wilt and pedestrians to faint in the street.
Disguised as a doctor, Harrison enters a hospital. Sean enters to get a new prosthetic leg that is really a cleverly disguised gun. Harrison finds out that Sean and Lauren are both related to Cass, who can't choose between Harrison and her family.
Harrison follows them to a cornfield. Cass is there. So is Lauren, who 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, after Lauren leaves, we see Harrison standing on the balcony saying to Cass: "When you shot me at point blank range, I knew you loved me."
Sean and Lauren plot to kill their father, Sir Robert McKintyre, who is secretary-general of the United Nations). Harrison, disguised in a Scottish kilt, attends a party where he sees Sean aiming his leg gun at McKintyre. He just manages to save McKintyre. They are cornered by Lauren, Sean and accomplices, but Fergus Falls and a SWAT team arrive just in the nick of time. Falls officially tells Harrison that he was "wrongfully accused."
In the last scene, we see Harrison and Cass on a cruise ship, spoofing Titanic as lovers at the bow of a great vessel, then bumping 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 23% "Rotten" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes web site.
Trivia
- A TV anchorwoman in the film is called Ruth Kimble. Kimble is the protagonist's surname 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.
- The picture on the box of the home video is a parody of The Fugitive same as the tagline.
- In the The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, 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.
- During the Cornfield Scene Harrison is driving a Car with Hydraulics and the same Steering wheel Cheech Marin uses in Up in Smoke
- 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 the 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.
- "The Village of Hilltop" 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
There are numerous films parodied in Wrongfully Accused, including:
External links
