Question: How did the Marshalls figure out that Dr Nichols was in Kimble's car?
BaconIsMyBFF
15th Mar 2022
The Fugitive (1993)
10th Jan 2022
The Fugitive (1993)
Question: When interviewed by the police, why did none of the doctors provide Kimble with an alibi, stating he'd been doing the operation at the time of his wife's murder? They all state how much of a great doctor Kimble is, but not once do they say he was doing an operation.
Answer: Because the surgery wasn't much of an alibi, the police and the prosecution are arguing that Richard killed Helen after the surgery. The time of Mrs. Kimble's death does line up with Richard coming home after the surgery and fighting Sykes. Since nobody but Richard and Sykes know the exact second Helen died, the police theorized that Richard came home from the surgery and killed his wife so his colleagues mentioning the surgery is meaningless.
11th Dec 2019
The Fugitive (1993)
Question: Where does Kimble's money come from? We only see him get whatever pocket money Nichols had on him at the time, but the next thing we see, he's renting an apartment and living his life and starting his investigation. Is the assumption that the wealthy doctor had a stash of cash at home or something?
Answer: The assumption is actually that Nichols gave him quite a bit of money. When asked about how much money he gave Kimble, Nichols downplays the amount as just "pocket change, whatever I had on me" but in reality it was probably a few hundred dollars. Renting the room was probably only a few dollars a day, it was in an un-finished basement in a bad neighborhood. He also didn't live there for very long.
3rd Sep 2010
The Fugitive (1993)
Question: Towards the end, before the confrontation with Kimble and Nicholls, the guy who was tracing Kimble's phone records tells the Marshalls that Kimble telephoned Sykes on the night of his wife's murder. But obviously it wasn't Kimble calling Sykes, it was Sykes using Kimble's phone. But why would Sykes be calling himself?
Chosen answer: He didn't. A key plot point is that Nichols borrowed Kimble's car on the night of the murder. The call to Sykes, which is expressly stated by the marshals as being on Kimble's car phone, was from Nichols, presumably arranging to meet so that he could give Sykes Kimble's keys to get into his house to lie in wait for him.
Thank you for explaining it. I've seen it several times and never realised how it went down.
And Tommy Lee Jones tells Kimble that they knew Nichols called Skyes from his car, but how? Wouldn't the more logical answer have been that the US Marshals thought that Kimble called Sykes from his car to tell the killer his wife was home alone? There is no way the US Marshalls would have known that the Kimble let Nichols borrow his call - that's the mistake in the movie! It actually should have made the Marshalls suspicious of Kimble, not exonerate him.
The Marshals know Kimble let Nichols borrow his car because Kimble told the police when he was initially interviewed following the murder. He gave a detailed account of his actions and whereabouts that night and mentioned that Nichols had borrowed his car. It didn't seem suspicious to the police at the time because Richard claimed he fought with a one armed man he didn't recognize; a story the police did not believe because there was no evidence of this and Kimble's wife "identified" her attacker as Richard. Gerard puts everything together when he realises that Nichols lied about knowing Lentz.
How did Sam figure out that Nichols borrowed the vehicle and made the call to Sykes and gave him keys, etc? I know in the laundry he reveals that he knew this but when/how did he figure it out?
Ok, so why didn't Kimble's lawyer use this information? It would make no sense for Kimble to call Sykes; they could've solved the case easily if they had actually done some digging and not thrown Kimble under the bus.
Answer: This is more of a question really. What kind of defense attorney did this high dollar, Dr. Kimble hire who do not show their defendant pictures of the one-armed men the police question? How do his attorneys not ask him "OK, which of these one-armed men did you fight with in your house?"
The prosecution is not required to inform the defense of every person the police interview or question. They are only required to give the defense whatever evidence they have against the accused. Simply questioning someone in a perceived dead only counts as evidence against the accused if the prosecutor mentions it in court. If the prosecutor were to say "We interviewed a one-armed man named Sykes and he says he doesn't know you", then Kimble's defense would be required to be given access to Sykes. We can assume this never happened.
Yes, but what about the phone call made from the phone in Kimble's car to Sykes on the night of his wife's murder? It's said that Kimble gave the car to Nicholls, and it would make no sense for Kimble to call Sykes.
The Chicago police DID question Sykes after the Kimble murder. Review the scene where Sykes returns to his apartment after Kimble has been there. Girard starts asking Sykes questions, at first Sykes says he doesn't know anything about Kimble but then "remembers" that he had been interviewed by the police right after the Kimble murder. However, Sykes says that he gave the police an alibi, with 15 people supposedly confirming that Sykes was on a business trip and not in Chicago. The movie then implies that Sykes had been a Chicago cop and lost his arm "in the line of duty." Remember that the Chicago police focused on Kimble pretty quickly. Their investigators may have interviewed Sykes, but they likely didn't even come close to considering him as a potential murderer. Even with Sykes likely matching Kimble's description of the one-armed man, the police likely saw Sykes as a former cop... A former cop who had an alibi confirmed by 15 people. As I understand it, prosecutors don't have to tell defense attorneys about everyone that the cops question. They only have to tell the defense about potential witnesses that might be called in connection to the criminal trial. In this scenario, Sykes wouldn't have been part of the criminal trial (Again, supposedly on a business trip confirmed by 15 people on the night of the murder) and thus Kimble and his lawyers would never have known about his existence.
21st Jan 2018
The Fugitive (1993)
Question: Since Lentz was really the mastermind behind the entire thing, why did Nichols have him killed?
Answer: Lentz was not the mastermind, Nichols was. Nichols had Lentz killed to tie up a loose end.
Answer: Kimble mentioned in his police interview that he loaned Nichols his car the night of the murder. This part of his interview actually wasn't shown on screen. It is mentioned by Gerard's team as they attempt to piece together the crime and catch Kimble.
BaconIsMyBFF
But why wouldn't his defence team see this as suspicious? We know that a call was placed from Richard's car to Sykes on the night of the murder, and Richard had no reason to call Sykes, and this also would have discredited Sykes' alibi.
Sykes was interviewed by the police but had a (fake) alibi. He was supposedly out of town during the murder, so this was a perceived dead end. It was not clear at the time of the trial that Kimble was targeted for assassination, so these perceived dead ends never went anywhere.
BaconIsMyBFF