Chain Reaction ** (1996, Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Kevin Dunn, Joanna Cassidy, Brian Cox, Chelcie Ross) – Classic Movie Review 753

Keanu Reeves goes into action as physicist Eddie Kasalivich, when his water energy experiments set off a vast blast and a chain reaction of betrayals, in the 1996 conspiracy thriller film Chain Reaction.

Keanu’s eager-beaver acting and fine running, Rachel Weisz’s beauty as his fellow scientific doctor Lily Sinclair, and Morgan Freeman’s impressively suspicious looks as Paul Shannon keep this incredible, real old-style B-movie of a conspiracy action-thriller afloat.

But, alas, the yarn in the screenplay by J F Lawton and Michael Bortman is a damp squib. However, Fred Ward and Kevin Dunn are useful men to have aboard as the FBI agents on the case, while Joanna Cassidy, Brian Cox and Chelcie Ross are welcome presences too.

Directed by action expert Andrew Davis, Chain Reaction is highly professional but not much more. There is just nothing more Davis can do with the material he has got. Some found it risible, and Reeves took a lot of flack. He was nominated for a Razzie as the year’s worst actor, but, to be fair, he didn’t win. And, yes, it is a disappointment, but it’s really quite watchable. The good cast definitely help to bail it out.

The original story is by Arne L. Schmidt, Rick Seaman and Josh Friedman. Even with five people working on it, this is the muddled result. But then ‘I’m your friend, Eddie’ is the only line of dialogue in the film from Friedman’s speculative screenplay Dead Drop, though plot elements of it were kept in the ensuing rewrites.

It was filmed in the freezing winter of 1995-96 in Chicago, the hometown of director Davis, where he also made Code of Silence (1985), Above the Law (1988), The Package (1989) and The Fugitive (1993).

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