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“Nowhere to Hide” ends with a car chase in which a helicopter is chasing a car, which is just how you want a mid-80s conspiracy thriller to conclude, but what stuck with me more was when in the middle of an earlier car chase, ex-Marine Barbara Cutter (Amy Madigan) is forced to change a tire when one goes flat. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that before: a mid-car chase tire change. And whether a spare could hold up under car chase conditions when the pursuit continues, well, I was less concerned with that than how the episode demonstrated Barbara’s cool resourcefulness. It’s one element that did not feel straight off the shelf, as so much of “Nowhere to Hide” does, one part “Commando,” one part “Hard to Kill,” one part “Rambo.” Why there is even a macabre nod to the space shuttle Challenger in so much as this conspiracy thriller turns on a defective military helicopter C-ring.
The last one is being investigated by Barbara’s husband (Daniel Hugh Kelly), promptly killed when he gets close to the truth, and right in front of his and Barbara’s young son, Johnny (Robin MacEachern). That distinguishes “Nowhere to Hide” as an 80s movie, alright, quite happy to blend gruesome violence with a tender mother/son relationship. Granted, the son is often treated less as a character than a plot device, unwittingly toting around both the C-ring waiting to expose the truth and the homing beacon that ensures he and his mom can never get too far away from the bad guys, but Madigan’s emotional ferocity makes you believe all this is happening, nevertheless. It’s why even if one part of me thinks “Nowhere to Hide” could have used more Michael Ironside as Barbara’s survivalist Vietnam-vet brother, another part of me knows nothing would surpass Madigan embodying Barbara’s maternal hysterical strength, changing a car tire in lieu of lifting a car.
