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Frantic
Frantic movie poster
Directed by	Roman Polanski
Produced by	Tim Hampton Thom Mount
Written by	Roman Polanski Gérard Brach
Starring	Harrison Ford Betty Buckley John Mahoney Alexandra Stewart introducing Emmanuelle Seigner
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Witold Sobocinski
Editing by	Sam O'Steen
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	February 26, 1988
Running time	120 min.
Language	English, French

Frantic is a noted 1988 thriller film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Harrison Ford.

Synopsis

Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Walker, a surgeon visiting Paris with his wife for a medical conference. At their hotel his wife is unable to open her suitcase and Walker determines that she has picked up the wrong one at the airport. While Walker is taking a shower his wife mysteriously disappears from their hotel room. Still jet-lagged, he searches for her in the hotel with the help of a polite but mostly indifferent staff, then wanders outside to look further on his own. A wino overhears him in a café and tells Walker he saw his wife being forced into a car. Walker is sceptical until he finds his wife's ID bracelet on the cobblestones. He contacts the Paris police and the US embassy but their responses are bureaucratic and there is little hope anyone will look for her. As Walker carries on the search himself (with input from a very sympathetic but wary desk clerk at the hotel) he stumbles onto a murder scene and then encounters the streetwise young Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner) who mistakenly picked up his wife's suitcase at the airport. It transpires that she is a career smuggler but does not know for whom she is working. She reluctantly helps Walker in his increasingly frantic attempt to learn what was in the switched suitcase and to trade whatever it is for the return of his wife.

It turns out that hidden within a small replica of the Statue of Liberty is a krytron, a small electronic switch used in the detonators of nuclear devices. The film ends with a confrontation beside the River Seine where the terrorists release Walker's wife. However, a firefight ensues between the terrorists and American agents, and Michelle is killed in the crossfire. Angry and upset, Walker throws the krytron into the river.

The French locations and Ennio Morricone's musical score create much of the film's atmosphere. Grace Jones' recording of "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)" is heard at key moments in the film.

Reception

Frantic was a critical success and moderately successful at the box office. The film received "Two Thumbs Up" from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on the TV show Siskel & Ebert and The Movies^[1] Pat Collins of WWOR-TV called it "Polanski's best film ever."^[2]

Cultural references

Frantic was mentioned in the Barenaked Ladies' song "One Week" and also referenced in Mos Def's "Ms. Fat Booty" from Black on Both Sides. The song "Frantic" by Aqueduct has both a "Roman Polanski Version" and an instrumental "Harrison Ford Version".

References

External links

• Frantic at the Internet Movie Database
• Frantic at Rotten Tomatoes
• Frantic at Yahoo! Movies