Now, I'm not really familiar with the Robin Cook-book (no pun intended, as this movie isn't about food), so I can only judge the movie on its own.
Right before the movie I had just seen "Sometimes They Come Back", also starring Tim Matheson, and a week before that I had seen "Fletch!", so his look was quite clear in my memory, which is probably why I didn't recognize him at first, because he had big blonde hair and a mustache.
Anyway, the plot is a follow: Tim Matheson's character, Dr. Rhodes is helping a woman deliver her child, when she suddenly dies as the cause of an overdose of painkiller or something, and then he is accused of involuntary manslaughter or fatal malpractice or whatever, but is convinced that he didn't do anything wrong and was framed somehow, and decides to take the law into his own hands.
Then his lawyer, Mr. Bingham (played by the recognizable Kurt Fuller from such comedies as "Wayne's World" and "Scary Movie") helps him find a loan-shark, (played by Alex Rocco, who was Moe Greene in "The Godfather") who borrows him half a million dollars, which he is unable to pay, and thus introduces the movies most fun character: The Bounty Hunter, Devlin O'Shea, played flamboyantly by the brilliant Robert Pastorelli (RIP), known from "Dances with Wolves", "Eraser" and "Murphy Brown", who is a guy hunting down Dr. Rhodes for the bounty, but soon discovers something wrong with the picture, and changes his attitude slowly. He is always wisecracking and talking jive while eating sandwiches, which gives this movie a bigger lift than it actually deserves.
This movie more or less seems like a rip-off of "The Fugitive" (especially with the "shaving-beard-off-disguise"), although it was technically released sooner than the Harrison Ford-movie, so the producers couldn't be sued later for plagiarism. The first half hour of this movie is so dreadfully dull, that I seriously contemplated just shutting it off, but fortunately I managed to survive the initial boredom, and actually found myself viewing a pretty decent action-thriller with a few chase-scenes and shootouts near the end, which saved the experience.
Verdict: 6/10 (based on similar TV-movies), because the characters and plot-twists were just enough to keep interest going, once the first half hour of the movie was over with. Not exactly a movie that begs for a second viewing, but as a one-time experience it was alright.
