Conceived as a spin-off of the extremely successful The Fugitive (seven Oscars), US Marshals may have faired much better without the shackles of comparison.

Tommy Lee Jones (best supporting actor, The Fugitive) is brilliant as the super cool, super efficient government bloodhound who won't quit the chase, even to sleep, until the job is done.

US Marshal Sam Gerard is no muscle bound superhero, but his wits, wit and dogged determination means he always gets his man.

Though in this case, as in the The Fugitive, he eventually twigs to the fact his quarry is, perhaps, not the bad guy after all.

To atone for his obligatory opening-scene misdemeanour, Gerard is tasked by his boss to escort a plane load of bad-ass crims to the federal pen.

During the otherwise routine flight, one of the prisoners produces a .22cal ball-point pen and tries to assassinate Mark Sheridan (Snipes).

Too early in the piece to shuffle off this mortal coil, Sheridan is ready for him.

The short scuffle results in explosive decompression of the plane and the shootist landing in a freshly-run bathtub 40,000ft below.

The ensuing plane crash is as spectacular, but not quite as believable, as the train crash, in setting up the fugitive's escape.

So begins the chase, through snake infested swamp, onto the open highway and eventually through the urban jungle, with Sheridan apparently able to cope with any environment or close-call situation with professional cunning.

And here in lies the difference between US Marshals and The Fugitive.

Unlike the clever, but naive (to the art of escape and evasion) Dr Richard Kimball, Sheridan, as it turns out, is ex US Special Forces, framed by the real bad guy to take the heat for something he didn't do.

As these things go, the story line is not too bad, the nail-biting action is fast, furious and in plentiful supply and the characters are well portrayed.

In fact, for a film that runs for 136 minutes, it never loses the audience.

The only criticisms I could level at it were;

if it was allowed to stand on it's own credentials instead of pushing the link with The Fugitive it would not have fallen down in comparison;

the love interest for Sheridan was a bit weak and probably could have been fulfilled more credibly by the cliched, affable old buddy back at the office (a la Mercury Rising);

and with Wesley Snipes playing second fiddle to the always brilliant Tommy Lee Jones, he never seemed to cross that very fine line between a good performance and a great one.