Witness (1985 film)

In April 1984, an Amish community outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, attends the funeral of Jacob Lapp, who leaves behind his wife Rachel and eight-year-old son Samuel. Rachel and Samuel travel by train to visit Rachel's sister, which takes them into Philadelphia. While at 30th Street Station waiting for a connecting train, Samuel goes into the men's room and witnesses the brutal murder of an undercover police officer.

Detective Sergeant John Book and his partner, Sergeant Elton Carter, are assigned to the case. They question Samuel, who is unable to identify the perpetrator from mugshots or a line-up. Samuel then sees a newspaper clipping in a trophy case of officer James McFee receiving an award, and points him out to Book. Book investigates and finds out that McFee was previously responsible for a seizure of expensive chemicals used to make black-market amphetamines, but the evidence has now disappeared. Book surmises that McFee sold the chemicals to drug dealers, and that the murdered detective had been investigating the theft. Book expresses his suspicions to Chief of Police Paul Schaeffer, who advises Book to keep the case secret so they can work out how to proceed. Book is later ambushed and shot in a parking garage by McFee and left badly wounded. Since only Schaeffer knew of Book's suspicions, he realizes Schaeffer is also corrupt and tipped off McFee.

Knowing Samuel and Rachel are now in danger, Book orders Carter to remove all traces of the Lapps from his files, and drives the boy and his mother back to their community where he passes out in front of their farm. Book insists that going to a hospital would allow him to be found and put Samuel in danger. Rachel's father-in-law Eli reluctantly agrees to shelter him.

Book slowly recovers in their care and begins to blend into the community. He and Rachel are also drawn to each other romantically, although they refrain from acting on their feelings. Meanwhile, Schaeffer searches for Book by contacting authorities in the Amish area but, as Amish communities have no modern means of communication and little contact with the outside world, he hits repeated dead ends.

Book eventually goes into town with Eli to use a payphone to call his precinct, and learns that Carter has been killed. While in town, a group harasses the Amish. Book retaliates, breaking with the Amish tradition of non-violence. The fight is reported to the local police and word eventually gets back to Schaeffer.

The next day, Schaeffer, McFee, and another corrupt cop, Ferguson, arrive at the Lapp farm, taking Rachel and Eli hostage. Book tricks Ferguson into the corn silo and suffocates him under tons of corn, then uses Ferguson's shotgun to kill McFee. Schaeffer holds Rachel and Eli at gunpoint, but Eli signals to Samuel to ring the farm's bell. Book confronts Schaeffer, who threatens to kill Rachel, but the bell summons the neighbors. With so many witnesses present, Schaeffer surrenders and Book arrests him.

Once the case is concluded, Book departs after saying goodbye to Rachel and Samuel, and Eli wishes him well "out there among them English".

In his book The Amish in the American Imagination (2001), scholar David Weaver-Zercher notes that Witness is primarily concerned with the intersection of contrasting cultures, a recurring theme in several of Weir's films, including The Last Wave (1977) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).[2] Weaver-Zercher notes that the conflict between Amish and non-Amish as depicted in Witness "reflect[s] well on the Amish ways" and also serves as a redemption story for Sergeant Book, who regains a new sense of humanity during his displacement in the Amish community.[3]

Witness had its world premiere at the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in on February 7, 1985.[13] The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.[14]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A wonderfully entertaining thriller within an unusual setting, with Harrison Ford delivering a surprisingly emotive and sympathetic performance."[21] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[22]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film four out of four stars, calling it:

[F]irst of all, an electrifying and poignant love story. Then it is a movie about the choices we make in life and the choices that other people make for us. Only then is it a thriller—one that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud to make... We have lately been getting so many pallid, bloodless little movies—mostly recycled teenage exploitation films made by ambitious young stylists without a thought in their heads—that Witness arrives like a fresh new day. It is a movie about adults whose lives have dignity and whose choices matter to them. And it is also one hell of a thriller.[23]

Ebert also praised Ford's work and claimed he had "never given a better performance in a movie." Vincent Canby of The New York Times:

It's not really awful, but it's not much fun. It's pretty to look at and it contains a number of good performances, but there is something exhausting about its neat balancing of opposing manners and values... One might be made to care about all this if the direction by the talented Australian film maker, Peter Weir... were less perfunctory and if the screenplay... did not seem so strangely familiar. One follows Witness as if touring one's old hometown, guided by an outsider who refuses to believe that one knows the territory better than he does. There's not a character, an event, or a plot twist that one hasn't anticipated long before its arrival, which gives one the feeling of waiting around for people who are always late.[24]

Variety said the film was "at times a gentle, affecting story of star-crossed lovers limited within the fascinating Amish community. Too often, however, this fragile romance is crushed by a thoroughly absurd shoot-'em-up, like ketchup poured over a delicate Pennsylvania Dutch dinner."[25]

Time Out New York observed, "Powerful, assured, full of beautiful imagery and thankfully devoid of easy moralizing, it also offers a performance of surprising skill and sensitivity from Ford."[26]

Halliwell's Film Guide chose Witness as one of only two films from 1985 to receive a four-star review, describing it as "one of those lucky movies which works out well on all counts and shows that there are still craftsmen lurking in Hollywood."[27]

Radio Times called the film "partly a love story and partly a thriller, but mainly a study of cultural collision – it's as if the world of Dirty Harry had suddenly stumbled into a canvas by Brueghel." It added, "[I]t's Weir's delicacy of touch that impresses the most. He ably juggles the various elements of the story and makes the violence seem even more shocking when it's played out on the fields of Amish denial."[28]

Negotiation expert William Ury summarised the film's climactic scene in a chapter titled "The Witness" in his 1999 book Getting to Peace (later republished with the alternative title The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop) and used the scene as a symbol of the power of ordinary citizens to resolve conflicts and stop violence.[33]

This scene from the popular movie Witness captures the power of ordinary community members to contain violence. The Amish farmers were present as the third side in perhaps its most elemental form, seemingly doing nothing, but in fact playing the critical role of Witness. Like the Amish, we are all potential Witnesses.

— William Ury, The Third Side[33]

Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited Witness as one of his favorite films of all time.[34][35]

• Wahlbrinck, Bernd. WITNESS Revisited: An Appreciation of Peter Weir's Famous Film, Tumbleweed 2020, ISBN 978-3-9821463-5-5
• Kelley, William and Earl W. Wallace (based on the screenplay by Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley). Witness, Pocket Books; Media Tie In, 1985 ISBN 978-0671545956

Wikiquote has quotations related to Witness (1985 film).

• Witness at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Witness at IMDb
• Witness at AllMovie
• Witness at the TCM Movie Database
• Witness at Box Office Mojo
• Witness at Rotten Tomatoes