NCIS star Mark Harmon launched into a characteristic movie profession with the 1987 comedy movie Summer time Faculty, which was a modest box-office success and served as an efficient showcase for the Eighties allure and handsomeness that led Harmon to be named Folks’s second-ever Sexiest Man Alive in 1986. Following Summer time Faculty, he starred alongside Sean Connery within the 1988 crime movie The Presidio, during which he performs a former navy cop turned San Francisco police detective who investigates a homicide dedicated on the titular Military base.
Nevertheless, regardless of the incomparable presence of Connery, whose function in The Presidio was instantly preceded by Connery’s Academy Award-winning efficiency within the 1987 crime movie The Untouchables, The Presidio was a industrial and important failure, which dealt a extreme blow to Harmon’s feature-film aspirations. Certainly, whereas The Presidio turned a just about forgotten footnote in Connery’s legendary profession, the failure of The Presidio heralded Harmon’s imminent return to tv, the place he subsequently toiled for greater than a decade till his historic run on the navy police procedural tv sequence NCIS in 2003, the yr Connery retired from appearing.
Mark Harmon and Sean Connery Comply with the Buddy-Cop System in ‘The Presidio’
The Presidio
- Launch Date
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June 10, 1988
- Runtime
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97 minutes
- Director
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Peter Hyams
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Jack Warden
Sgt. Maj. Ross Maclure
The Presidio is a fast-paced, smooth thriller that’s nonetheless comprised just about fully of acquainted parts from earlier movies. That is evident within the movie’s opening scene, which encompasses a technically and visually spectacular automotive chase on the streets of San Francisco that’s immediately harking back to Steve McQueen’s traditional car-chase scene within the nice 1968 cop thriller movie Bullitt.
Nevertheless, the spinoff nature of The Presidio is most clearly seen with Mark Harmon and Sean Connery’s characters, whose relationship fulfills all the necessities of the buddy-cop method with out bringing something thrilling and new to this well-worn dynamic. Like Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte’s mismatched companions within the seminal 1982 buddy-cop movie 48 Hrs., Harmon’s character, San Francisco police detective Jay Austin, and Connery’s Lieutenant Colonel Alan Caldwell, don’t like one another after they’re pressured to collectively resolve a homicide that’s been dedicated on the Presidio Military base.
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Austin is a former navy cop who served on the Presidio base underneath Caldwell’s command till a falling out between them over Caldwell’s perceived betrayal of Austin, which led Austin to depart the Military and be a part of the San Francisco police division. Along with his private historical past with Caldwell, Austin is emotionally invested within the homicide investigation, because the sufferer, a feminine navy police soldier, was Austin’s former accomplice on the bottom.
Meg Ryan performs Caldwell’s free-spirited daughter, Donna, whose main function within the movie is to grow to be romantically concerned with Austin, thus complicating Austin and Caldwell’s already antagonistic relationship, which, after all, ultimately thaws, as Austin and Caldwell develop grudging respect for one another in the midst of their comparatively simple and uninteresting homicide investigation.
‘The Presidio’ Is a Precursor to ‘NCIS’
Mark Harmon’s ample although unremarkable efficiency in The Presidio is most notable for offering a telling glimpse of his triumphant later profession, particularly Harmon’s iconic portrayal of Particular Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the tv sequence NCIS over the course of 19 seasons. When The Presidio was launched theatrically in June 1988, Harmon was 36, roughly the identical age because the youthful model of Gibbs within the debut episode of the NCIS prequel sequence NCIS: Origins.
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Just like the youthful Gibbs in NCIS: Origins, Harmon’s character in The Presidio, Jay Austin, is haunted by a previous occasion, when it comes to the circumstances behind Austin’s determination to depart the navy and grow to be a San Francisco police detective. Furthermore, the episodic plot of The Presidio, which revolves round a diamond smuggling operation involving the navy, encompasses a thriller that Gibbs and his workforce may have handily solved throughout a routine episode of NCIS.
Harmon Is a Tv Celebrity Who Lacks Large-Display Charisma
Previous to The Presidio, Mark Harmon had properly established himself as a compelling actor on tv, as seen along with his chilling efficiency as real-life serial killer Ted Bundy within the 1986 tv miniseries The Deliberate Stranger. Nevertheless, he appears and appears curiously bland in The Presidio, during which his laid-back efficiency is overshadowed by Sean Connery’s effortlessly forceful presence, in addition to Meg Ryan’s high-voltage efficiency as Harmon’s character’s love curiosity.
Whereas Connery and Ryan emerged from The Presidio just about unscathed, a lot of the blame for the industrial and important failure of The Presidio, which grossed simply over $20 million on the home field workplace, was attributed to Harmon, who was judged to be the movie’s weakest hyperlink. This sentiment was echoed by critic Roger Ebert in his one-a-half-star assessment of The Presidio. Ebert wrote:
“Connery has just a few good moments, largely created by his personal vitality and energy, as when he makes use of his excellent timing to provide extraordinary dialogue the sensation of humorous understatement. Harmon appears to lack charisma. On the premise of this movie, he isn’t an attention-grabbing actor.”
You may lease The Presidio on Apple TV and Prime Video or watch Harmon in NCIS, which is streaming on Paramount+.