The Presidio [Peter Hyams, 1988]:
A serviceable conspiracy thriller from director and cinematographer Peter Hyams - a dependable journeyman of such films as Capricorn One (1978), Outland (1981), 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) (an early example of what is now known as a "legacy sequel"), Time Cop (1994), Sudden Death (1995) and End of Days (1999), among others. Hyams tends to get overlooked by the contemporary movie culture, enraptured as it is by the lure of the autocratic auteur. I suspect this particular film might’ve retained more of a legacy had original co-star Kevin Costner not backed out, but it's still provides decent entertainment value. As criticism, the courtship between the characters played by Mark Harmon and Meg Ryan, and the complications this creates between our protagonists, Harmon and Sean Connery (the father of Ryan's character), is somewhat predictable, but the mix of murder mystery, action movie and lament of old soldiers still carries some weight. Similarly, the San Francisco setting (much of it fogbound) provides a great atmosphere.
