Too many fans seem to be blown away

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Perfect cast and a good story

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The Presidio (1988)Plot In A Paragraph: A San Francisco civilian police detective is forced to work on a series of murders with his former enemy commanding officer while dating his daughter.The Presidio is a backwards step for Connery, it's pretty predictable, routine thriller that had the potential to be so much more. Thankfully it proved to be only a momentary blip, and is largely forgotten about these days. This was the first time I had watched it since about 1990 (my DVD was still in its shrink wrap) and the main thing I remembered was that Meg Ryan went topless in it during a love scene.I think if Connery had anticipated his Oscar success, he would have chose his next project more carefully, and this would not have been in his filmography. After 3 great performances in a row, he kind of phones this one in.Meg Ryan had nailed the cute blonde prt down in the late 80's early 90's and she looks great here!! Jack Warden has a decent role as an old army buddy of Connery, and he is always worth watching. We get an awful rent a bad guy, but Rick Zumwalt (Over The Top's Bull Hurley) has a role here as 'Bully In Bar, who Connery beats up using only his thumb. The love scene I mentioned earlier is missing from my DVD!! I am not impressed about it. The Presidio grossed $20 million at the domestic box office to end the year as the 48th highest grossing movie of 1988.

A break-in at a military base leads to a murder; the perpetrators' escape causes the death of a cop outside the base, so the case will involve both the San Francisco P.D. and the military police. Former MP Jay Austin (Mark Harmon) is now a detective who will butt heads with his old commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Caldwell (Sean Connery). They'll argue about methodology, and jurisdiction, and other such things, and Jay will naturally fall in lust with Caldwells' conveniently cute daughter Donna (Meg Ryan).Although there are some good moments for the main actors - Jack Warden also among them, as Caldwells' longtime friend Ross Maclure - this movie is more entertaining during its murder investigation scenes. It IS played awfully straight, with not much in the way of humour, but then, this is more of a serious thriller than the typical buddy-cop action film. It does also have, however, a ridiculous scene that serves no real purpose to the plot other than to show how bad ass Connery is, as he beats up Rick Zumwalt (as a bully in a bar) with his THUMB. Slickly made, with capable direction by Peter Hyams, who again serves as as his own cinematographer (and does a better job of lighting the proceedings than usual). The location work in SF is excellent, fortunately.The handsome Harmon is passable as our likable good guy protagonist, but he doesn't have much chemistry with either Connery or Ryan. The supporting cast is solid: Mark Blum, Marvin J. McIntyre, Dana Gladstone, the much too briefly seen Jenette Goldstein, Don Calfa (in a quick cameo), John DiSanti, Robert Lesser, Patrick Kilpatrick, etc., but Connery is the principal reason to watch "The Presidio". His effortlessly strong presence lends itself well to the role of a career military man.This is easy enough to watch, but also easy enough to forget.Six out of 10.

The role of Provost Marshall at the Presidio was not real stretch for Sean Connery. He just had to continue the role he played in The Untouchables the year before. That is not to say that he wasn't good, but it was a familiar type for him - tough cop and tough father.This time he was protecting his daughter, played by Meg Ryan in a role that is familiar also, against a San Francisco police detective (and former MP) played by Mark Harmon.Ryan gave that sweet role that she played in Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. The cute smile and the girlish manner that we all love; not the raw role we saw in In the Cut.I am a big fan of Harmon in NCIS and I always enjoyed his earlier roles. he does a good job here as well.There was plenty of action: car chases, running through the streets of San Francisco, and a final gun battle that ends it all.

Detective Jay Austin (Mark Harmon) was sure that somebody wanted something badly from the storeroom that night… So he broke in and killed his friend, an MP, Patti Jean Lynch (Jeanette Goldstein) during her routine patrol… Austin used to be an MP under Lt. Colonel Caldwell's (Sean Connery) command… He thought he could use the Colonel's help avoiding other channels… His instinct tells him that the bullet belongs to someone on the base… What we get here is an investigation involving both the Army and the San Francisco Police Department… Now, while Caldwell considers Austin a man who has no respect for women and he'll use his daughter (whom he loves too much) to get at him… his friend, Sgt. Maj. Ross Maclure (Jack Warden) knows that Donna is not a little girl anymore, and that her father doesn't want her to grow up… As a woman in love, Donna (Meg Ryan) knows that her father and Austin don't like each other… So she decides to find out about Austin, and about that incident in the Presidio, where the female MP that was shot to death was with Austin when he busted Colonel Paul Lawrence (Dana Gladstone)… The investigation takes a turn when Caldwell knew that Arthur Peale (Mark Blum)—a former province adviser to the CIA in Vietnam—owns the Black Mountain Water Company… Slowly, he begins to perceive that there's a piece missing, something worth killing for… The film carries two car chases in the streets of San Francisco, a good fight in a bar, and a climactic shoot-out in a water bottling plant