Digging a little further back into Netflix’s extensive movie archive, you’ll find Witness, one of the major award-winning movies of 1985. From the opening scene, we see what appears to be images from the early US frontier: a community of old-fashioned dressed people gather for a funeral. The title card: Pennsylvania, 1985. No, we’re not in the 19th Century as first impressions lead us to think, we’re deep in Amish country in what was present day at the movie’s release.
While on an errand to the city, a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) inadvertently witnesses a murder in what was supposed to be a clean, unseen killing. As the sole witness to something that was supposed to look like an accident, the boy is at great risk for being murdered himself. Enter Philadelphia policeman John Book (Harrison Ford), who quickly realizes the murder that he saw wasn’t just an off-chance crime, and may have deeper corruption behind it. To protect the boy from any further harm, John goes undercover and must assimilate with the Amish and hide before he is discovered.
The midpoint of the film features the entire community gathering together as one, and the sequence is pure movie magic.
Fish-out-of-water movies are some of the staples of American cinema, but the reason Witness works so well is because the motivation behind hiding amongst the Amish has so much tension and suspense riding behind it. The clock is constantly ticking before our protagonists are sniffed out of hiding. Meanwhile, through John’s eyes, we see a world that is foreign to any moviegoer. It’s completely captivating to see the day-to-day traditions and practices of a people who have been operating the same way for over a century. The midpoint of the film features the entire community gathering together as one, and the sequence is pure movie magic. As a bonus, look for a young Viggo Mortensen amongst the Amish young men.
It is through Rachel (Kelly McGillis of Top Gun fame) that John is shown the Amish world. Their chemistry is immediately electric, but they cannot be together since he is not Amish. Most romance films are about two different people destined to end up together, but here we have characters whose destinies are apart. What a way to add more tension to the ongoing suspense that the movie already carries!
Australian director Peter Weir has an enormous range in his filmography. One of his absolute strengths here is drawing Harrison Ford to his absolute best, utilizing his action star reputation to elevate the story. This movie remains his only Oscar-nominated performance. He’s a master at telling large-scale stories that don’t have trouble focusing on the key figures. For more examples, check out Master and Commander, Dead Poets Society, or The Truman Show just to name a few. As mentioned the story itself is tremendous, but thanks to some phenomenal cinematography, numerous images carry deeper, powerful symbolism for the situation at hand.
Like the Amish themselves, Witness does not feel like it has changed much since its release. It’s a gripping thriller, focusing equally on the drama and characters as on the action. It may not be remembered as well as some of its peers, but in terms of older movies available from Netflix, it still stands today as one of the absolute best.
