a5c7b9f00b John Kruger works for a branch of the Justice Department call Witness Security or Witsec, that's responsible for relocatibng and protecting witnesses. John's latest assignment is Lee Cullen, who works for a company that's a Defense Contractor, who is selling weapons to enemies of the U.S. When she agrees to get the evidence that the Feds need to take them down, she goes in and does it but was not told by the Feds that she was going to have a bullseye on her for the rest of her life. After refusing to be placed in Kruger's custody, some men attack her home but Kruger arrives just in time to save her and relocate. Later when several witnesses under Witsec are killed, Kruger accompanies another Witsec agent Deguerin to save a potential victim, when they get there, Deguerin shoots the killer but also kills the witness, and then plants a photo of Lee in the shooter's pocket. When Kruger sees the photo, Deguerin asks where she is, Kruger intially gives him a false location but while on the plane, Kruger sensing something's not right, calls her, which means that she is suppose to meet him somewhere. Kruger's drugged and when he awakens he discovers that Deguerin is not only working with the people who are trying to sell the weapons but has just framed him for killing another agent. Kruger escapes and gets to Lee in time but unfortunately, he is still a fugitive, so he must try and prove his innocence while trying to protect Lee. John Kruger works for the witness relocation program as a U.S. Marshal. His job is to remove all traces of the identity of any witness in the program and to, as called for, eliminate threats against any of those witnesses. John works alone and is the best at what he does. When Lee Cullen, a high level executive with a U.S. weapons manufacturer, turns over evidence of illegal arms deals to the FBI, John is assigned to protect her. But they both soon find that the level of treason extends far past the Cyrex Corporation and into high levels of the government. John and Lee become the target of these money grubbing capitalist pigs and their survival depends upon John's ability to protect both of them. The first half of Eraser is quite a gritty and enjoyable action flick. There are some decent set pieces and a potentially interesting story about corporate greed and government corruption. But then on a scene in a plane the film switches gears and becomes a ridiculous orgy of preposterous violence.<br/><br/>Now I fully admit that it's somewhat stupid to moan about an Arnie flick being preposterous, but there's a fine line between being enjoyably silly (Commando) and just being dull. For example, in Commando you have Arnie annihilating an entire army in someone's garden; it's hilarious. But in Eraser he does the same with silly science-fiction laser phalluses; it just ain't the same.<br/><br/>But like I say, the film starts off well enough. It opens with an ex-gangster being beaten up by the people he ratted out – the ex-gangster is in the witness protection scheme. Arnie then turns up and kills the gangsters swiftly and efficiently. It's a nice little scene. And then after that we have another enjoyable action scene where Arnie protects a witness who's going to give evidence against a corrupt arms manufacturer. He turns up at the woman's house, gets a nail in the hand (which he pulls out – nice!) and then blows her home to smithereens, killing the bad guy's in the process. It's not bad.<br/><br/>However, in that action scene, the first warning sign of the impending crapness manifests itself. And it manifests itself in the form of the 'Rail Gun'. It's meant to be a hi-tech piece of weaponry but it looks like an over-sized Super Soaker (if you want real phallic guns, just watch Aliens). And things get worse when the rescued witness tells Arnie the technology behind them. Apparently they fire aluminium rounds almost at the speed of light. Come on, I'm no scientist, but at least give me some credit. And she also says that they work through EMP. She then explains what EMP is. But because I've heard EMP explained about a million times before in Bond films, I was almost nodding off.<br/><br/>But there was one thing that I absolutely loved in the action scene in the house. The female witness is using her computer to try to access some information she's stolen from the arms manufacturer. Tension builds as it's hinted that someone else is in the house. However, it turns out to be her ex-boyfriend. The boyfriend gets about two lines of dialogue before he's zapped by a round fired (almost) at the speed of light. Then after Arnie rescues the woman, and as they're driving away from her exploded house, she briefly voices some remorse that her boyfriend got killed. But a second later she's over it and the boyfriend doesn't get another mention. You've got to love cannon fodder.<br/><br/>Another good scene is where Arnie and James Caan go to the house of a witness whose whereabouts may have been compromised. You think the two men are working as a team, but while Arnie stabs bad guys through doors and kicks them out of windows, Caan shoots the witness. And to make it even more perverse, when Arnie enters the room, Caan pretends to give mouth to mouth. Then when Arnie leaves he sucks the life out of her. I enjoyed that a great deal.<br/><br/>But after this there's a scene on a plane and everything begins to unravel. Caan drugs Arnie, tries to persuade him to join the dark side and Arnie then manages to kill a couple of people before opening the plane door. Then he blows up a jet engine, loses a parachute, flies out the plane and catches up to the parachute Moonraker-style and puts it on. Ah, but it doesn't end there. Caan gets the pilot to aim the plane at Arnie. For a few moments it appears that Arnie is going to get splattered but he pulls out his gun, fires at the plane and gets the plane to sail over him. And then because of that Arnie gets tangled in the parachute and has a nasty landing on top of a van in a junk yard where he's greeted by a couple of comedy children. "Where am I?" "Earth. Welcome." I can only shake my head. Again, I can accept Arnie sailing through a shopping centre Tarzan-style in Commando, but I just can't get my head around a man accurately firing at the pilot of a jet plane while falling to Earth with a parachute. I guess it could have been enjoyably silly had the effects work been better, the stunt double less obvious and the children less annoying (or completely removed), but it just doesn't work as a sequence.<br/><br/>Neither does the scene with the alligators. They waddle like they've got piles and the animation curiously looks like it was done with stop-motion even though it's CGI. However, the scene is almost made worthwhile by the legendary pun that is, "You're luggage." But let's face it, it's not as good as Arnie stabbing a Freddie Mercury look-a-like with a pipe and then uttering, "Let off some steam, Bennett." <br/><br/>And that reminds me, in Eraser Arnie visits a gay bar. That's just too self-aware for a Schwarzenegger flick. I much prefer the latent gayness of Eighties Arnie to the nodding and winking of the post-modern Nineties Arnie.<br/><br/>But the final action scene is where the film becomes absolutely terrible. You have comedy Italian gangsters, phallic light-speed gun shoot-outs and about a million explosions. Plus Arnie gets shot and then has the strength to climb on top of a shipping container and beat up James Caan. I know Arnie's indestructible, but there's only so far you can push it, especially when the film takes itself somewhat seriously. This is the kind of film that Arnie should stick to. He plays the Eraser to perfection, having just the right amount of over the top macho humour to balance with the all action heroics. If you like Arnie and you like action films, then you'll love Eraser. It's the typical elements that make Eraser no more than a solid bit of fluff: This is one of those movies where good guys don't miss, and bad guys can't shoot to save their lives. Lee Cullen (<a href="/name/nm0001853/">Vanessa Williams</a>), a senior executive with the Cyrez Corporation, manufacturer of secret weapons for the military, has discovered an internal scam involving the illegal sale of high tech weapons to terrorists, an act of treason. She reports it to the F.B.I., and U.S. Marshall John Kruger (<a href="/name/nm0000216/">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>) is assigned to protect her until she can testify against Cyrez. Unfortunately, Kruger's colleague and mentor, Robert Deguerin (<a href="/name/nm0001001/">James Caan</a>), also a U.S. Marshall, is actually the mastermind behind the scam. Deguerin frames Kruger for killing another agent. With the help of Johnny Casteleone (<a href="/name/nm0665123/">Robert Pastorelli</a>), an ex-mobster currently in the Witness Protection Program, Kruger attempts to prove his innocence and infiltrate Cyrez in order to find out exactly what is happening. Eraser is based on a screenplay written by Tony Puryear, Walon Green, and Michael S. Chernuchin. In the movie, "Eraser" refers to a witness protection agent who "erases" a person's past life and sets them up with a new identity. Osso bucco (translation 'bone hole') is a Milanese (Italian) dish made of veal shanks braised with vegetables and broth. Lee explains that a railgun is a secret electromagnetic pulse rifle that doesn't use gunpowder or bullets but fires aluminum rounds at extremely high speed. According to Lee, Cyrez was contracted to scale it down to make an assault rifle, the most powerful assault rifle on Earth. Kruger and Lee had previously agreed that, if Kruger contacted her, she must immediately go to a public place such as the zoo. Knowing that he was drugged, Kruger feared that he might reveal her whereabouts. DeGuerin was also probably well aware that Kruger had been trained to withstand extreme amounts of pain so he knew that torturing him to get Lee's location would be pointless. Therefore, drugging and tricking him into paging Lee was the best option. On the courthouse steps, following their indictment for treason, Deguerin and Undersecretary of Defense Daniel Harper (<a href="/name/nm0738850/">Andy Romano</a>) tell reporters that their actions have exposed an alliance between this administration and some of "our nation's worst enemies" and insist that they will be vindicated at the upcoming trial. Deguerin privately assures Harper that their case will never reach trial because all they have is Lee's testimony against them. Meanwhile, Kruger and Lee get into a van and prepare to drive away. Suddenly, in front of everyone's eyes, the van explodes. Not seen by anyone is a hand closing a sewer grating under the van. Deguerin and Harper drive away in their limo, congratulating each other on arranging Lee's timely death, until they realize that neither of them had anything to do with it. Suddenly, the limo stops, the door locks close automatically, and the chauffeur, actually Johnny Casteleone in disguise, walks away from the car. The limo phone rings, and Kruger's voice says, "You've just been erased." Kruger can be seen standing near the road as Deguerin and Harper realize that they're parked on railroad tracks and that a train is rapidly approaching them. They struggle to no avail to unlock the limo doors and break the windows, but the train crashes into them and the limo goes up in flames. In the final scene, Johnny drives off in another car and waves to Kruger as he passes. Kruger climbs down an embankment into another car where Lee is waiting. "What happened?", she asks. Kruger replies, "They caught a train," and they drive away. Caught a Train by Trevor Rabin. This Schwarzenegger action flick is heavily censored in the UK missing out more than two minutes of action and fight sequences not suitable for kids at the age of 15. Alison along with several other witnesses were killed for 2 reasons: (1) it would trick Kruger into thinking that Lee was in danger and hopefully it would convince Kruger to reveal where he had hidden her, and (2) when they killed Lee it wouldn't look like it was related to the Cyrez scandal.