Eyewitness (1981)

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, James Woods, Christopher Plummer, Steven Hill, Morgan Freeman, Pamela Reed, Kenneth McMillan, Irene Worth. [R]

Inadequate thriller fails to negotiate the terms between its offbeat, character-driven interests and the cold, convoluted mechanics of it far-fetched plot. Hurt plays a janitor who stumbles upon a murder victim and uses it as an opportunity to get close to a news reporter (Weaver) he’s infatuated with, but the killer is fooled into believing that he knows more than he actually does, which makes him a target. Not too many surprises, and it becomes hard to care down the stretch; a few interesting ideas and off-center performances can only hold interest for so long in the face of such ambivalence. Credulity is all but thrown out the window in the last half-hour, including the revelation of the heavy, which is somehow obvious well in advance and overly contrived. Cast features a lot of rising/pre-fame stars, including Freeman as a detective in one of his earliest roles of substance. Initially released in the UK as The Janitor.

43/100