Review of Witness (1985) by Aditya M — 10 Nov 2014

It's not often that movies are made about the Amish, so it's especially disappointing that "Witness" is such lightweight fluff. It starts off promising enough, with an interesting character and a strong hook: a young Amish boy on his first trip to the city is the only witness to a grisly murder that happens just feet in front of him.

Oddly, though, he and his young, widowed mother seem unaccountably calm about the event, and their only concern is that the police investigation causes them to miss their train. This isn't because they're secretly involved or anything like that; it's because they're stunningly underwritten.

Unfortunately, the plot fares no better than the characters. After the boy identifies a police officer as the murderer, a predictable twist requires the lead investigator, Harrison Ford, to go into hiding with the witness and the mother.

When Ford's stereotypical hardass cop, who has the distracting name of Book (a reference to the Good Book? to booking criminals?), finds himself confined to an equally stereotypical Amish community that doesn't cotton to his citified ways, it becomes eye-rollingly obvious where the movie is heading.

Book and the young widow grow unaccountably close-maybe she likes short-tempered city slickers, and maybe he likes women whose life experiences have no overlap with his own-as they take part in all three of the recognizably Amish events outlined in Weird Al Yankovic's parody about the sect.

The ostensibly crucial witness is off-screen for these activities, which include barn-raising, being bullied by townies, and milking cows. Book, of course, comes to respect these people in spite of their different way of life, and they come to respect him despite the fact that he's given to violence, corrupts the young widow, brings mortal danger to their community, and uses the child as a meat shield.

An obligatory near-kiss, an obligatory lecture from a paternal figure, and an obligatory actual kiss later, it's finally time for the shootout sequence in which, no kidding, the Harrison Ford character emerges triumphant.

He receives assists from a cow patty, a grain silo, and the fact that his foes apparently arrive without a plan. The Amish setting is never more than the skin on a bare-bones, by-the-numbers Ford thriller.

Amish ideas about morality are introduced but never come into play. The simplicity of "Witness"'s plot and characters would make it a good training film for a child of the witnesses's age, but the kid is barely around and the language and occasional deaths of the adults are perhaps too harsh for that set.

Ford is asked to do nothing out of the ordinary for him, and his Best Actor win, his very nomination even, is one of the mysteries of Oscar history.