The Presidio (1988)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Peter Hyams

Writer (WGA):

Larry Ferguson (written by)

Release Date:

10 June 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

THE PRESIDIO ARMY BASE, SAN FRANCISCO. When a landmark of historic tradition becomes the scene of a shocking murder, a military commander and a street-tough cop are forced into action... against the killer, the mysterious past, and each other.

Plot:

Jay Austin is now a civilian police detective. Colonel Caldwell was his commanding officer years before...

Plot Keywords:

Army | Detective | Presidio | Chase | Female Nudity

Cast

Sean Connery	...	Lt. Col. Alan Caldwell
Mark Harmon	...	Jay Austin
Meg Ryan	...	Donna Caldwell
Jack Warden	...	Sgt. Maj. Ross Maclure
Mark Blum	...	Arthur Peale
Dana Gladstone	...	Col. Paul Lawrence
Jenette Goldstein	...	Patti Jean Lynch
Marvin J. McIntyre	...	MP Zeke
Don Calfa	...	Howard Buckely
John DiSanti	...	Det. Marvin Powell
Robert Lesser	...	Sgt. Mueller
James Hooks Reynolds	...	George Spota
Curtis W. Sims	...	Sgt. Garfield
Rick Zumwalt	...	Bully in Bar
Rosalyn Marshall	...	Lawrence's Secretary

Also Known As:

The Presidio: The Scene of the Crime (UK)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby SR (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Canada:14+ (Ontario - 2006) | South Korea:15 | Netherlands:16 | Australia:M | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Originally meant to star Sir Sean Connery and Don Johnson, but Johnson had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with "Miami Vice" (1984). Mark Harmon was brought in as a last-minute replacement.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: When Austin is given the address of Colonel Lawerence in Chinatown he is told its in Chinatown at 1412 Washington which is in the Nob Hill District of San Francisco.

Quotes:

Jay Austin: The reason why I'm here is because I'm interested in you, not your father.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Crap Shoot: The Documentary (2007)

Soundtrack:

Tangerine

Meg and Harmon just cut to the chase…

Detective Jay Austin (Mark Harmon) was sure that somebody wanted something badly from the storeroom that night… So he broke in and killed his friend, an MP, Patti Jean Lynch (Jeanette Goldstein) during her routine patrol…

Austin used to be an MP under Lt. Colonel Caldwell's (Sean Connery) command… He thought he could use the Colonel's help avoiding other channels… His instinct tells him that the bullet belongs to someone on the base… What we get here is an investigation involving both the Army and the San Francisco Police Department…

Now, while Caldwell considers Austin a man who has no respect for women and he'll use his daughter (whom he loves too much) to get at him… his friend, Sgt. Maj. Ross Maclure (Jack Warden) knows that Donna is not a little girl anymore, and that her father doesn't want her to grow up…

As a woman in love, Donna (Meg Ryan) knows that her father and Austin don't like each other… So she decides to find out about Austin, and about that incident in the Presidio, where the female MP that was shot to death was with Austin when he busted Colonel Paul Lawrence (Dana Gladstone)…

The investigation takes a turn when Caldwell knew that Arthur Peale (Mark Blum)—a former province adviser to the CIA in Vietnam—owns the Black Mountain Water Company… Slowly, he begins to perceive that there's a piece missing, something worth killing for…

The film carries two car chases in the streets of San Francisco, a good fight in a bar, and a climactic shoot-out in a water bottling plant…