Striking Distance


Striking Distance is a 1993 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis as Pittsburgh Police homicide detective Thomas Hardy. The film co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Farina, and Tom Sizemore. It was directed by Rowdy Herrington and written by Herrington and Marty Kaplan. The film was shot on location throughout Pittsburgh; its early title was Three Rivers.

Plot

homicide detective Thomas Hardy turns in his partner and cousin, Jimmy Detillo, for using excessive force, which in turn causes him to became alienated by the majority of his fellow officers. Thomas and his father Vincent are en route to the Policemen's Ball when a call comes in indicating a serial killer, the Polish Hill Strangler, who Tommy believes is a police officer, has been spotted driving in downtown Pittsburgh. As Tom and Vince pursue the killer's car, the vehicles collide and both roll down an embankment. When Tom regains consciousness, he learns his father has been shot dead and the killer has escaped. Police arrest a criminal named Douglas Kesser as the Strangler. Later, Jimmy jumps off the 31st Street Bridge; his body is never found.
Two years later, an alcoholic Tom has been reassigned to the River Rescue Squad. Called to the scene of a body dump, Tom finds the victim is an ex-girlfriend. He is assigned a new partner, Jo Christman, who learns from District Attorney Frank Morris that Tom had been demoted after telling a television reporter that he believed the Strangler was a policeman. After a nurse is abducted, Tom receives a phone call similar to the ones left by the Strangler. Detective Eddie Eiler, who hates Tom for turning in Jimmy, states on TV the murder was committed by a copycat. Tom is met with strong opposition by his uncle, Captain Nick Detillo, after suggesting the Strangler is back. Tom steals the Strangler file from the precinct in order to conduct an unauthorized investigation. Soon after, the body of another of Tom's ex-girlfriends is found.
Tom is invited to the Policemen's Ball by Jo, as she is not familiar with any other officers there. A brawl occurs there between Tom and the hostile officers in attendance, but Jo intervenes and takes him home. Later that same night, the two engage in a heated confrontation after Jo pours Tom's whiskey down the sink in an attempt to prevent him from drinking. Tom pleads for her to leave, but is shocked when Jo shuts down the suggestion and reveals her desire to make love. They have passionate sex, unaware that they are being watched by someone outside Tom's houseboat.
While on patrol, Tom and Jo stumble upon someone dumping what appears to be a wrapped body off a bridge. Tom destroys the suspect's car but the unidentified individual escapes. Divers retrieve the body only to find it to be merely a bunch of rugs, which leads to Tom and Jo being humiliated by their peers. Later that night, Tom and Jo share their suspicions that the killer purposely dumped the rugs to discredit them. Meanwhile, Eiler informs Nick he suspects Tom of the murders. Nick discloses that Tom has been under scrutiny by Internal Affairs. During a court hearing to have Tom removed from the force, it is revealed Jo's real name is Emily Harper, a Pennsylvania State Police investigator probing Tom for evidence of misconduct. Emily perjures herself and Tom goes free.
Emily is kidnapped from her apartment just as Tom finds the body of another victim outside his houseboat. Thinking that Jimmy's other cousin Danny has been committing the murders out of revenge, Tom heads upriver to the Detillo family cabin. Just as Danny arrives, someone from behind tases Tom unconscious. Tom awakens to find himself, Danny, and Emily handcuffed to chairs. The killer turns out to be none other than Jimmy, who survived the fall into the river. Jimmy is about to kill Emily when Nick suddenly walks in and tells his son to turn himself in. Jimmy instead forces Nick to reveal that he accidentally killed Vince when Jimmy took off.
Jimmy shoots Nick and fights with Danny, giving Tom a chance to free himself. As the police close in, Jimmy flees in Tom's motorboat with Tom in pursuit. The two get into a scuffle in which Tom kills Jimmy by tasering him in the mouth. The final scene shows Tom, who has been reinstated as a detective, visiting his father's grave with Emily and her daughter Sarah at his side.

Cast

The film was cited as one of the many troubled projects during the time Sony Pictures was run by Jon Peters and Peter Guber. It took a huge amount of resources to merely break even.
Filming took 13 weeks in the summer of 1992 in Pittsburgh. The working title was "Three Rivers," and it was scheduled for release on May 21, 1993. But after the original cut was shown to test audiences who hated it, extensive re-shooting was done in Los Angeles, with story changes and removal of some plot points. Because of this, the release date was pushed from May to Sept. 17.
According to articles and reports at the time, test audiences disliked the initial cut of the film largely because they found parts of it confusing. Those parts were added into director Rowdy Herrington's and Marty Kaplan's original script by star Willis. One source claimed the original cut was like "Hudson Hawk without the laughs."
One of the veteran production members said that Willis "called the shots like he did on ' Hawk' and like he used to do on 'Moonlighting'. He had scenes rewritten. He did what he wanted to do. We were working with Orson Willis."
When news about re-shoots were reported, Columbia’s then-current chairman Mark Canton said in an interview that he "couldn't be more enthusiastic" about the film, predicting it would be a "beyond-sizable hit". But in order to do so, the movie had to make $30 million-plus profit at the box office. Canton was known for being heavily involved in several other films in earlier years that had very troubled productions and received bad receptions from audiences during test screenings. Those include Wes Craven's sci-fi horror film Deadly Friend, one of Willis's earlier box office flops The Bonfire of the Vanities, and John McTiernan's Last Action Hero. Just as he did with Striking Distance, Canton kept the news and rumors about problems on sets of those films and bad responses from test audiences from the public and demanded heavy changes on the films, which only ended up making matters worse.
In Striking Distances case, for example, all the love/intimate scenes between Hardy and Jo were re-shot to make them sexier. Several dialogue scenes, such as the scene in the bar between Willis and Sizemore, were also cut to make the film's pace quicker. The change in tone made Columbia change the title from "Three Rivers" to "Striking Distance", as it now focused more on the action/thriller elements. Although his interference in the script and huge ego during filming caused problems with the production and the original cut, Willis was still very angry because he had to return for re-shoots, so much so that he blamed Herrington for it, despite the fact that Herrington defended Willis in interviews regarding problems with the film. According to cast and crew, Willis treated Herrington very poorly during both initial filming and re-shoots.
The theatrical trailer shows a lot of deleted, extended and alternate scenes, probably ones that were cut or changed after bad test screenings of the original cut. There are also many promotional stills that show several other deleted scenes, such as Tom and Jo pulling a man out of the water while a group of people watch them and a deleted shot from the ending, showing Tom kneeling over Nick's body.
Striking Distance ended up being a box office bomb in the U.S, earning only $24 million on a budget of $30 million.

Reception

Striking Distance received negative reviews from critics; it currently holds a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert rated the film one and a half out of four stars, criticizing the film's cliches and stating: "The credits say "written by Rowdy Herrington and Martin Kaplan," but the right word would have been "anthologized."" Owen Gleiberman called the film a "flat, dankly lit, grindingly inept thriller about a serial killer whose victims all turn out to have been acquaintances of Willis' rumpled, alcoholic cop hero."

Filming locations