15 films where everyone is focused on just one character

The “John Wick” series escalated quickly. The first film, while stylized, is a reasonably small story. Hitman wants to retire, some obnoxious son of a gangster ruins his life, and so he seeks vengeance. By the second film, John Wick is in a world of over-the-top rules and ridiculous lore. Also, there’s way more violence and action set pieces. At the end of the second movie, Wick is “excommunicado” and so every assassin and hitman in, um, the world is after him? And yet, he survives.

Dr. Richard Kimble did not kill his wife. U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard doesn’t care. In the classic thriller “The Fugitive,” based on a TV show, Kimble is wrongly convicted for killing his wife. When he can escape during prisoner transport, he seeks to find the one-arm man who actually committed the crime. Meanwhile, Gerard and all his men are on a no-holds-barred search to capture Kimble. Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Gerard, won a surprising Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

It’s quite difficult to be the target of a clandestine government operation when you are also struggling with amnesia, which leaves you unsure why you are the target of said operation. Jason Bourne is supposed to be dead, but he does not die. That leaves a certain CIA black ops organization looking to tie up loose ends. Bourne needs to figure out who he is (spoiler: a government-trained assassin) and that’s not easy when you have people coming out of the woodwork to try and kill you.

“Midnight Run” is a great action-comedy with some good laughs and quality set pieces. When you think about it, it’s also an “everybody is after one person” movie. Even if he is annoying, everybody wants the Duke. Jonathan Mardukas, Charles Grodin’s best role, embezzled $15 million from a mob boss. Robert De Niro’s bounty hunter Jack Walsh gets tasked with finding him after he skips bail. Whenever the Duke escapes his grasp, he’s looking for him. So is Jimmy Serrano, the mob boss, and FBI agent Alonzo Mosely, and fellow bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler.

A title like “The Getaway” kind of gives you a sense of the sort of movie you might be getting into. Either somebody is on a getaway vacation, or somebody is trying to, you know, get away. In this case, it’s the latter. In Sam Peckinpah’s movie, the wife of an imprisoned bank robber finagles his release on the condition he rob a bank once he gets out. After a double-cross, man and wife are left to flee from criminals and cops alike. It was a success, and it has fans now, though critics were lukewarm at the time. Personally, we’re on the side of the critics at the time. A movie with a plot like this should feel so wooden.

Walter Hill wrote “The Getaway.” He co-wrote and directed “The Warriors,” a cult classic that is definitely stylized if a little iffy from a plot standpoint. It definitely deserves cultish curiosity, though. The gangs of New York have come together at the behest of powerful kingpin Cyrus. Then, Cyrus is assassinated, the Warriors catch the blame, and they have to make it back to their turf on Coney Island with every gang member in New York trying to take them down. Yes, including that one gang that dresses up like Kiss-meets-the-Yankees you have probably seen images of.

“Enemy of the State” is frenetic enough to feel like a Tony Scott film, but not so frenetic as to be disorienting and unpleasant, which the worst Scott films could be. Will Smith plays a lawyer who, unbeknownst to him, is slipped a vital MacGuffin that the corrupt NSA head wants. He wants it so badly that not only are all his men after Smith, but he uses his resources to, well, position Smith as an enemy of the state. Only a former NSA agent played by Gene Hackman, now cynical and paranoid, can help him figure out what’s going on.

Back in 1990, pairing Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn in an action-comedy was effectively all you needed to do. Given the middling plot of “Bird on a Wire,” that is really all this movie is, and that was enough for it to be a hit. Hawn plays a lawyer who runs into her ex-fiancé, but the reason she hasn’t seen him in years is that he is in witness protection. His cover is blown, an attempt is made on his life, and now the two must go on the run.

It sort of feels like every “Mission: Impossible” movie is about the IMF team being framed and effectively disbanded. That isn’t always the case, but it certainly is in the first movie. Fittingly, it’s directed by Brian De Palma. In a fun twist, the IMF team we are introduced to on a mission are mostly all killed off in a double-cross. Since Ethan Hunt survives, he is suspected of being a mole, and so now the U.S. government, led by the IMF, are out to get him. That leaves Hunt to go underground to figure out what really happened and to avoid being taken out by his own government.

Yes, there are a lot of breaks for musical numbers in “The Blues Brothers.” It is, ostensibly, about a band getting together after Jake Blues is released from prison. Jake and Elwood are getting chased all the time, though. Carrie Fisher is trying to kill Jake. Illinois Nazis are after them. A redneck band called the Good Ole Boys are after them. And, in the fantastic final chase scene, seemingly every cop in Chicago is after them.

Llewelyn Moss should have just left the money there. He didn’t, and it ends up costing several people their lives, his included. A few people are after Moss, and the money, but nobody is as fearsome as Anton Chigurh. Played chillingly by Javier Bardem, the role won the actor an Oscar. In fact, “No Country for Old Men” won Best Picture, the first and only time the Coen Brothers won that award.

If you think “Don’t trust anybody over 30” is harsh, get a load of “Logan’s Run.” The world of the film seems successful on the surface, but that façade is kept up by the fact the government kills every citizen when they turn 30. Many accept it, believing they will be reborn, but others run, and they are chased down by “Sandmen,” an execution squad. One of those Sandmen? That would be Logan 5, and guess what? Now his last day has arrived, and he’s not so sure he wants to go quietly.

Do you remember a movie trailer where a guy in a tuxedo is being chased by a bunch of women in wedding dresses? Probably. Did you see that movie? Probably not, and you likely don’t remember what it was called. Well, we’re here to tell you that movie was “The Bachelor.” In a rom-com premise if there ever was one, Chris O’Donnell (in the “maybe he’s movie star?” era) finds out that his grandfather has died and left him his business worth $100 million but only if he is married by 6:05 p.m. on his 30th birthday, which wouldn’t you know it is the very next day? Look, “The Bachelor” is a bad movie, and a good portion of it is not chase-based, but we’ve always remembered that one image (it’s on the poster, too) and wanted to include it.

It’s a great title for a movie, even if the cyberpunk thriller is pretty mediocre. Apparently there’s a black-and-white version you can see that a lot of people say is better. Keanu Reeves plays a “mnemonic courier” who basically has data placed in a device in his head that he then carries to the client. Obviously, the reason for such a service is discretion, and he is uploaded with a piece of information a lot of people don’t want delivered, including a cyberpunk-influenced version of the Yakuza. Thus, the chase begins.

Look, people love Dave Bautista as Drax in the MCU, and he got to be in the two “Dune” movies so far. He is, for our money, the best actor to come out of the world of professional wrestling. In terms of a star vehicle that pops, he’s still waiting. “The Killer’s Game” isn’t it, and the critical and (especially) commercial response showed. It is a premise that does seem to work for a guy like Bautista, at least. He plays a hitman who puts a hit on himself when he is told that he has a fatal disease that will result in a slow and painful death. Turns out, it was a mix-up! Of course, there’s still a bunch of other killers out there looking to cash in on the contract.