The Presidio

entertaining
It's not the greatest thriller out there, but its decent enough to enjoy if you just don't assume that its a bad movie. Sean Connery does an excellent job, and Mark Harmon is not as wooden as other reviews would have you believe; he is at least comparable to his role in Navy CIS on tv. The action scenes are good, especially the foot chase in Chinatown. And the San Francisco locations are used to create a nice atmosphere. Connery and Harmon play off each other quite nicely and there are many scenese of subtle humor...a good movie.

One of Connery's finest.
I've seen this film about 20 times and I still love it. The terrific scenery of San Francisco is just one element of a "thinking person's" action film. A movie with a brain. And, probably Meg Ryan's best performance on film. Mark Harmon and Connery are perfectly cast and the script is intelligent and fascinating. I love this movie.

Two good actors, no plot...
1988's "The Presidio" paired veteran actor Sean Connery with a young Mark Harmon and a younger Meg Ryan in a rather mundane San Francisco murder mystery. The movie was set at the U.S. Army's beautiful Presidio of San Francisco military base and in San Francisco itself.

Connery is Lieutenant Colonel Caldwell, the cantankerous, by-the-book Provost Marshal of the Presidio; Harmon is Jay Austin, forced out of the military by Caldwell and now a hot-headed San Francisco police detective. When a military policeman is murdered during a break-in at the Presidio Officer's Club, the two must cooperate on the investigation. Their difficult relationship is made more challenging by Austin's attraction to Caldwell's beautiful but rebellious daughter, played with aggressive gusto by Meg Ryan.

The murder investigation leads to a conspiracy with ties back to the Vietnam War, culminating in a violent shoot-out in a bottled water warehouse. The plot will seem clumsy to audiences...

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