The Sunchaser

Road movie about a high-flying doctor who diagnoses a terminal illness in a half-Navajo prisoner. After overhearing the bad news, the convict overpowers his police escort and forces the doctor to drive him to a sacred Native American site in the Colorado mountains. During the journey, the pair slowly come to realise their common humanity., Moving drama starring Woody Harrelson as Michael Reynolds, a wealthy and successful Los Angeles oncologist who is kidnapped by one of his patients, Brandon ‘Blue’ Monroe (Jon Seda), a 16-year-old convict who has terminal cancer. Blue forces Reynolds to travel with him to a cloud-shrouded lake deep in the heart of a Navajo reservation, for he believes the waters there will cure his disease. Thus begins a journey that brings these seemingly opposite characters together in an adventure that changes both of their lives forever., Michael Cimino, the director of The Deer Hunter and the ill-fated Heaven’s Gate, helmed this bizarre New Age action picture in 1996. Based on a screenplay by Charles Leavitt, the film stars Woody Harrelson as Dr. Michael Reynolds, a rich, young L.A. physician who worries more about promotions and buying a $2 million home for his family than about his patients. Reynolds is assigned a 16-year-old convicted murderer, Brandon Monroe (Jon Seda), as his new patient. Brandon is a half-Cherokee gang member who killed his own stepfather, has terminal cancer, resents his privileged doctors, and has beaten up several pediatricians who’ve tried to care for him. Brandon gets a gun while going to the bathroom at the hospital and kidnaps Reynolds, stealing a car. While constantly threatening his doctor’s life, Brandon takes him on a trip to an Arizona Indian reservation with the aim of immersing himself in a magic lake which native tradition says has healing powers. Along the way, the pair meet up with motorcycle gang members, rattlesnakes, and several New Age philosophers. Eventually, the materialistic doctor and the young tough gain a grudging respect for each other’s values, and Reynolds even steals money to buy Brandon medicine., Michael Cimino’s film stars Woody Harrelson as a doctor who diagnoses half-Navajo prisoner Jon Seda as terminally ill. Seda overhears and, while being transferred to hospital, kidnaps Harrelson and sets out to a sacred site in Colorado to die. As the adventurous journey progresses, the relationship between the yuppie doctor and the ghetto prisoner blossoms as they begin to recognise each other’s humanity., Dr. Michael Reynolds is a zealous overachiever with a past that both haunts and motivates him. Brandon ‘Blue’ Monroe has spent most of his 16 years either terrorised by his abusive stepfather or banging it on the street, finally imprisoned by the state. Now a rare tumor ravages ‘Blue’ and he believes he can only be saved by seeking out a legendary healing lake. In a fateful turn of events they are thrown together and their lives are changed forever. A searing drama about two individuals who traverse the American West, confronting the mysteries that separate death from life and hope from despair on a journey that will transport them both to unexplored places on the road and in the soul., A convicted killer suffering from inoperable cancer forces a doctor to take him to a legendary lake purported to have healing powers. Woody Harrelson, Jon Seda, Anne Bancroft, Alexandra Tydings, Matt Mulhern, Talisa Soto, Richard Bauer, Victor Aaron, Lawrence Pressman, Michael O’Neill, Harry Carey Jr., Brooke Ashley, Carmen Dell’Orefice, Brett Harrelson, Robert Downey.