Dr. Richard Kimble (Movie)

DR. Richard David Kimble is the main character in the 1993 Movie The Fugitive, where He was portrayed by Harrison Ford.

Role In the film
One night, Richard Kimble, a successful, University of Chicago-trained, Chicago based vascular surgeon returns home from an operation after a party one evening to find his wife Helen dead following a brutal attack and a mysterious one-armed man with a prosthetic right arm escaping. Despite his attempts to save her and his testimony about the one-armed man, the lack of evidence of a break-in, his being the beneficiary of Helen's lucrative life insurance, a misunderstood 9-1-1 call, and his fingerprints found on the lamp, the gun, and the bullets, Richard is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death via lethal injection.

During the bus ride to the prison, one of the prisoners fakes a seizure and begins to foam at the mouth as if poisoned. A guard unlocks the cage separating him from the prisoner to assist him. The prisoner stabs him with a shank made from a concealed sharpened toothbrush, and chaos ensues. Another guard shoots the prisoner with a shotgun. A second prisoner tries to grab the gun from the guard, but in the struggle, the gun goes off and kills the driver. The bus crashes through a guardrail, rolls down a hill, and lands on a railroad track. The light from an approaching freight train appears, and Richard manages to pull himself and one of the guards to safety just as the train rams into the bus at speed. The bus is dragged on the front of the first locomotive for several hundred feet, but upon crossing a trestle, the first locomotive's coupler breaks, and every car from the second engine on back derails. Richard manages to outrun the derailing locomotive as it buries itself nose-first into the ground.

Richard is freed from his chains by another survivor, Copeland, and both escape from the scene on foot.

A car arrives at the crash site, containing Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard who leads a team from the US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force. They observe the debris, and Gerard finds the local sheriff, Rollins, interviewing the old guard who survived the wreck with minor injuries. The guard, given the suddenness of the wreck, is under the impression that all of the prisoners were killed in the wreck, and takes credit for Richard saving the other guard (when he actually left Richard and the other guard to die). Gerard requests for Rollins to establish police checkpoints, which Rollins is skeptical of doing until Gerard requests to have jurisdiction passed over to him. Just then, Deputy Cosmo Renfro recovers a pair of unshackled leg irons, and a manhunt begins for Richard.

The next morning, as the Marshals watch the cleanup work, the younger guard (the one who was wounded in the revolt), after being trapped for more than twelve hours underneath debris from one of the locomotives, is extricated, alive.

There are many close calls where Richard almost gets captured, mostly brought on by his compassionate instincts. The first instance is at a hospital after Richard shaves off his beard, and changes into a doctor's uniform. He very easily avoids being detected by a state trooper at the hospital on the lookout for him. He also happens to be present when the ambulance containing the wounded guard arrives. He helps the paramedics unfold the wheels on the gurney. The guard recognizes him, but Richard quietly puts the guard's breathing mask down to keep him quiet, and gives the paramedics a detailed description of the guard's likely injuries, which astonishes the paramedics. As soon as they leave, Richard steals their ambulance.

Richard is first discovered when he uses the lights and siren going through a grade crossing. He is pursued by the Illinois State Police on land and by Gerard in a helicopter running alongside the highway. Richard is then forced to a halt by a police road block in a tunnel near a dam. He exits the ambulance and is pursued by Gerard through the dam's drainage system. At one point, Richard confronts Gerard and insists on his innocence. Gerard, whose mission is simply to capture Richard and not to solve the crime, tells him He Doesn't care. Richard tries to continue running but Gerard eventually traps him near the end of a spillway. Richard escapes by doing a backflip off of the dam and into the water below.

The encounter with Gerard at the dam makes Richard realize that the authorities will always accept his guilt as a matter of fact, and that the only way to ever recover his freedom is by finding the real killer. The fact that Richard pointed a gun at Gerard during this encounter gives Gerard a strong motive to pursue his fugitive vigorously. Richard makes his way through the woods, and eventually dyes his hair to conceal himself more easily on his way to a truck stop. As he walks down the road, a woman picks him up and offers him a ride, which he accepts.

The Next day, Richard returns to Chicago to search for the one-armed man who shot Helen, believing that the he might still be there. He calls his lawyer Walter Guthrie and asks for help and money, but Guthrie says he can't help him like that. When Guthrie asks Richard Where he is, Richard says he's in ST. Louis as he knows that his call is being traced. At the Marshals Office, Gerard is reprimanded by his boss over the phone for killing Copeland (who was found alive and was also wanted for interrogation on Richards whereabouts), But Gerard Justifies it because during the raid to arrest him, Copeland had taken Marshall Noah Newman hostage and was going to kill him. When Gerard and the Marshals listen in on the wiretapped conversation between Richard and Guthrie, they then make out the sounds of an elevated train (which at the time of filming wasn't part of ST. Loius) rumbling by overhead. Further enhancement reveals the bell from the wells street bridge and a P.A. announcer on board an 'L' train saying, "Next Stop: Merchandise Mart," which tells Gerard that Richard's back in Chicago.

Richard also makes contact with many of his former medical friends and associates, virtually all of whom have never believed Richard to be guilty and are more than willing to help him. He also meets his close friend Dr. Charles Nichols, who gives Richard money, becomes a contact for him, and offers to help in any way. Later, when confronted by Gerard, Dr. Nichols boldly tells him to give up because Richard is too smart to ever be captured.

Richard rents a basement apartment and makes fake ID cards to pose as a janitor to get access to Cook County Hospital, where he hopes to search the computers in the prosthetic limb area for patient information matching the description of the one-armed man.

Unfortunately, The land lady's son is a drug dealer, as Richard only finds this out when he wakes up one morning after having a nightmare about Helen's murder. As he wakes up, he hears a series of car doors slamming out front. He looks out and sees the police running towards the house. A few of the officers break down the front door of the house while tactical assault officers circle it, looking to cut off all the escape routes. Curiously, none of them head for the basement. Richard then hears footsteps above, as the dealer and his accomplice upstairs try to break for it. They burst out of a back door, run down the steps to the yard, where the police arrest them, handcuff them, and lead them away.

The drug dealer informs the police that Richard is living with them, leading the Marshals to investigate his apartment. At Cook County Hospital, Richard finds names, addresses and Contact information for five men who have the same arm as his wife's killer. As Richard leaves, another Doctor asks him to move a little boy who was in a bus crash to one of the observation rooms. Richard had earlier noticed the boy being misdiagnosed and changes his form so that he can have a life saving surgery. Richard is confronted by the same doctor who asked him to move the boy, but he manages to escape. Gerard, always in hot pursuit, arrives with the Marshals and the police and learns about Richard saving the boys life, which leads him and Renfro to wonder why someone as smart as him would risk capture by going to such a high-profile place as a hospital. At that moment, they see a one-armed man walk by and they realize what Richard was probably up to.

Going through the list of men with prosthetic right arms, Richard is unsuccessful in finding the first two, with the second one recently deceased, but he discovers that the third man, Clive Driscoll, is in jail for armed robbery. He visits the man but sees that Driscoll isn't the killer because he's Black and Helen's murderer was white. Trying to understand Richard's movements, Gerard also finds Driscoll on a list of one-armed men with criminal records. Gerard arrives shortly after Richard, giving him a close call when they pass on the stairs, but he manages to escape into the Saint Patrick's Day parade, donning a hat to disguise himself.

Richard next checks the fourth name on the list: Frederick Sykes. When he is unable to reach Sykes by phone, Richard breaks into Sykes' residence. In the apartment, Richard finds that this is the man who killed his wife as well as a prosthetic arm similar to the one he remembered on the killer. He also finds some photos, one of which shows Sykes with another doctor who he met at the fundraiser, Pathologist Alec Lentz, who along with DR. Nichols also works for Devlin-McGregor pharmaceuticals, which sponsored the event, as well information on Provasic, the company's new artery cleaning/cholesterol lowering Pill. Kimble had investigated the pill and discovered that it caused severe Drug-induced hepatitis, which would have prevented it from being approved by the FDA: in fact, on the night of His Wife's murder, Richard was called in to preform emergency surgery on a man in Provasic's testing department, who also had a severely damaged liver. This causes Richard to realize that Sykes' presence wasn't an attempted robbery, but a planned hit, and that he was the original target.

Richard then places a call to the Marshal's office, but leaves the phone off the hook after conversing with Gerard knowing that the call will be traced. Gerard and his men successfully trace the call to Sykes' apartment, and conduct a search of the place. Eventually, Sykes returns home, and Gerard questions him. Gerard learns that Sykes is a form Chicago Police Officer turned security guard for Devlin-McGregor, handling security for their top executives. Sykes sarcastically professes his guilt, but lies about his alibi stating that 15 other people can vouch for his presence out of town, as he had told the police when they first questioned him about Helen's murder.

While the Police believe Sykes, the Marshals however are skeptical, and they set up surveillance outside of his residence. Gerard is also aware of the photo that Richard was looking at, due to fingerprinting of the apartment, and assigns Newman to check out the identity of Lentz in the photo.

After he leaves Syke's apartment, Richard calls Nichols, claiming that he now knows who was behind his wife's murder. Nichols explains to Richard that this might not hold up, as Lentz is dead: he died in a car accident the previous year. Richard still wants to double-check his findings, and asks Nichols to call hospital associate Bones Roosevelt to look over the samples.

Shortly after this, Gerard and several of his men meet with Nichols, questioning him about Sykes and the photo. Nichols claims he doesn't recognize Sykes or Lentz. Returning to their headquarters, Newman explains that in digging deeper, he found that on a blowup of the picture of Lentz and Sykes, Lentz is wearing a shirt that mentions Chicago Memorial Hospital, and goes there to investigate.

Newman and Marshal Bobby Biggs go to the hospital, learn of Dr. Lentz's identity and are referred to Roosevelt. When they mention Dr. Kimble, Roosevelt grows uneasy, before finally admitting that he had seen Richard previously, when he came by to pick up some samples. Upon further investigation, Roosevelt also answers some questions regarding Lentz. It actually turns out that DR. Nichols was Lentz's boss. This revelation is relayed to Gerard, who wants to now bring Nichols in, on the basis that he lied regarding their investigation, and also intends to bring Sykes in as well.

Meanwhile, Richard takes the tissue samples to former associate, Dr. Kathy Wahlund. Checking the samples, they see that they've been tampered with, and they all came from the same healthy liver. Richard asserts his theory that it was Lentz, but Dr. Wahlund notes that half of the samples that he approved of were done so on the day he died, thinking someone with access to Lentz may have been behind this. Richard immediately realizes that this whole time it was Dr. Nichols, and goes to confront him.

Richard takes an elevated train to a hotel where Nichols is giving a speech that night as a keynote speaker at a medical conference. On the train, he encounters Sykes (who had been trailing him from the hospital, on Nichols' orders, and had escaped from the cops after Nichols called the fire department, allowing him to walk away in the chaos). Their confrontation is interrupted by an officer who pulls his gun on Richard. Sykes shoots and kills the cop, but Richard uses the distraction To pull the emergency brake as the train comes into the Clark/Lake station and he manages to subdue Sykes and handcuffs him to a pole on the train. Richard then breaks a window, and escapes from the train on foot. Several witnesses notice Richard heading towards a hotel, and this is radioed to the CPD and to Gerard. Of concern to Gerard is that word of an 'officer down' has made Richard a dangerous suspect in the eyes of the Chicago Police, who will most likely take him down as soon as they can.

Richard manages to get to the conference room in the hotel, where Nichols is giving a speech in regards to the approval and release of Provasic. Nichols attempts to usher Kimble quietly into a small suite off to the side of the conference room, but Richard vocally accuses Nichols regarding his motive: Dr. Nichols falsified his research, orchestrated Helen's Murder and most likely killed and framed Lentz.

Once in the suite, Nichols attacks Richard, and the two scuffle in the room, before it eventually spills out onto the hotel's rooftop.

Gerard arrives but is told to stay out of the situation by the CPD. Gerard storms past the CPD and he eventually finds where Richard went. Gerard makes his way to the rooftop. Gerard watches as Richard and Nichols fight, before plummeting through a skylight, and falling atop an elevator that then descends.

The chase eventually leads them to the hotel's laundry room on the fifth floor. Nichols recovers from the fall first, but Richard is soon behind him. Gerard eventually makes it to the floor, yelling out to Richard that he's not only trapped, but that the CPD thinks he killed the officer on the train and that unless he give up, he'll be shot on site. Gerard also says that he knows of the Doctor's innocence, as well as what really happened on the night of his wife's murder: Nichols had barrowed Richard's Car and he had the keys to his house, which was how Sykes got in without forced entry. Nichols also telephoned Sykes from Kimble's car, as the Marshals had found out by going through Richard's phone records. Nichols manages to knock out Renfro with a gurney and takes his gun, and tries to shoot Gerard until Richard knocks him out.

In the aftermath, Sykes and Nichols are taken into custody, and Gerard escorts Richard out of the hotel in handcuffs. In the back of their car, Gerard removes the handcuffs, and gives Kimble a small bag of ice for his bruised hands. The car then pulls away as Richard is exonerated.