There was a time in the seventies and eighties where Harrison Ford was The Man. Guys wanted to be him and ladies wanted to be with him. Nobody will ever be cooler than Han Solo (a fact you can take with you to your grave) and all the credit for that has to go to Mr. Ford. While he may not have made anything all that spectacular lately, his older films still hold up really well and some of them stand as a real testament to just how good an actor Harrison Ford is when he's working on decent material. Witness in particular is a shining example of how it all comes together sometimes, and Paramount has decided to reissue the film in a new special edition.

Harrison Ford plays John Book (a role originally developed with Sylvester Stallone in mind), a cop who finds himself having to protect a young Amish boy named Samuel Lapp (Luke Haas) who, while out with his mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis) witnesses a brutal murder in a train station men's room. The victim of the attack turns out to be an undercover narcotics agent and the boy is at risk because of what he's seen. When confronted with Amish society, the hardboiled inner city cop is faced with a culture he doesn't understand but he does his job and soon enough he starts falling for Rachel.

Telling you anymore about the storyline would be a grave disservice to anyone who hasn't seen this one yet (there's got to be at least two or three of you out there) so I'm going to leave it at that. The less you know going into the last half of the film for the first time, the better.

While the film's he made in the last decade have been hit or miss, there's no denying the exceptional way that Ford (who as nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for this role) handles his performance in Witness. He's perfectly cast as John Book and you can really see it in his face and his eyes when the action starts just how conflicted he is over everything that he's going through and in turn that he's putting this family through simply by being where he is. In a sense, he turns their entire world upside down. A good portion of the film does focus on Book's growing understanding and tolerance of a culture he knows nothing about, and Ford does a completely admirable job of growing his character's emotions and feelings as the storyline, and in turn the romance he experiences, develops. The Amish focus on family and brotherhood is foreign to Book, who isn't exactly the most gentle of souls. Their passiveness to the threat that faces Samuel is completely at odds with his defensive stance on the issue, which leads to some interesting conflict between Book and some of the community members who pull clout in the area. Not to be outdone, Kelly McGillis is also very good as Rachel, the Amish mother. Made a year before she broke many a young man's heart in the ultra cheesy Top Gun, she proves here to be more than capable of handling a serious dramatic role and she brings a certain softness and sensuality to her character that makes for an interesting contract to Ford's gruff and tough cop. Her confusion and concern over her son's plight is genuine and heartfelt and it's interesting to watch Rachel and Book's relationship develop as they obviously come from two completely different worlds. When Rachel finally does recognize that she has feelings for this strange man who has been thrust so vehemently into her otherwise quiet and slow moving world, she's unsure how to approach it, and likewise, Book has no idea how or if he can win her heart though he obviously reciprocates.

Look for Viggo Mortensen (of Lord Of The Rings fame) in his big screen debut in a supporting role as a young Amish man named Moses Hochleitner. Danny Glover of the Lethal Weapon films has also got a good supporting role in the film.

Though the film was originally slated to be directed by David Cronenberg (which would have been interesting), Peter Weir (who also got an Oscar nomination for this film) does a truly masterful job of holding the reins on this one. Witness does a fantastic job of combining the perfect blend of romance, drama, action and suspense with some interesting characters in a unique setting that it all just falls into place. The look of the film suits the storyline very nice and the Oscar winning editing from Thom Noble keeps the pacing tight and the plot moving along nicely. John Seale's Oscar nominated cinematography does a fine job of not only capturing the rather odd surroundings that the bulk of the film takes place in but also the grittiness of some of the other locales and the intensity of the action and suspense sequences. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Original Score, and Best Art-Set Direction in 1986 (the same year that Out Of Africa cleaned house), proving that it's technical achievements weren't overshadowed by the acting, at least not in the eyes of the Academy.

Video:

Paramount presents Witness in a very nice anamorphic widescreen transfer that preserves the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85.1. The quality of the image on this DVD is very solid indeed, with deep, strong black levels and wonderfully distinct color reproduction – there are no instances with bleeding or over saturation at all. In terms of print damage, there's very little to complain about, just a speck here and there and while there is some mild film grain in a few scenes it isn't distracting at all. There's a very revelatory level of both foreground and background detail in the picture and there are no problems at all with mpeg compression artifacts. Some mild edge enhancement can be seen in a few spots as well as a few minute instances of shimmering here and there but neither of those issues are too severe and they don't detract from this otherwise exemplary transfer at all. Paramount has done an excellent job with the picture quality on this release and Witness looks great.