Bird on a Wire is a 1990 American action comedy film directed by John Badham and starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn.

Gibson portrays a man in the witness protection program who is unexpectedly reunited with his former girlfriend, played by Hawn, and both find themselves on the run.

Attorney Marianne "Muffie" Graves unexpectedly crosses paths with her hippie ex-fiancé Rick Jarmin while in Detroit for a business deal.

He revisits a beauty salon where he was pretending to be an effeminate gay man and was the star hairdresser, and contacts old flame Rachel Varney, now a veterinarian, who helps Rick and Marianne escape from a murderous hitman duo following them in a helicopter.

Zimmer contrasted this with his work on other films like Green Card or Regarding Henry, which were recorded with synthesizers and didn't incur the same expensive fees, making them easier to release.

A review in Variety called it "an overproduced, tedious road movie" and wrote that "Frank Capra's It Happened One Night established the format, but John Badham is stuck with a terrible script on this 1990s version.

"[4] Desson Howe of The Washington Post wrote his review of the film in the style of an autopsy, opening it by saying "The Names: Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn.

"[6] Roger Ebert gave the film a two-and-a-half-star rating out of four, writing: My guess is they screened a lot of Hitchcock movies before they made "Bird on a Wire", and the parts they liked the best were where Hitch placed his couples in situations that were dangerous and picturesque at the same time; scenes like the Mt.

[8]Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that "Bird on a Wire fits a simple equation: you will like it in exact proportion to how willing you are to be charmed by Mel Gibson or Goldie Hawn.

Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn can't cultivate their chemistry because their characters are too busy dodging bullets and scampering away from the bad guys.

"[13] Michael H. Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said that "clearly, there is nothing cheap or cheesy about Bird on a Wire, and yet the film feels significantly less than the sum of its parts.

[14] Henry Mietkiewicz in the Toronto Star wrote: Walk into certain supermarkets and you'll find a slew of bland, no-frills products in austere packages at bargain prices.

But if ever a film deserved to be hawked via a poster with the word "Movie" in big, block letters on a stark, white background, it's Bird on a Wire.

Who would have imagined that Goldie Hawn, without a hit for 10 long years since Private Benjamin, would choose director John Badham's noisy, vacuous vehicle for her comeback attempt?

But after working so hard in the late '70s and early '80s to create the impression that her giggly exterior hid a shrewd mind, Hawn has now accepted a role as little more than a dizzy damsel in distress.