Notes: Despite the mostly static setting, this early directing effort from Quentin Tarantino set the tone for a lot of his later work. Packed with top-notch actors, this violent movie shows the interactions of seven criminals who are strangers to each other and have been codenamed with a color - Mr. Pink, Mr. White, etc. They fight over their color codes, and that gives you a glimpse of what is to come, especially after they realize they’ve been set up on their diamond heist. What ensues is all out paranoia and violence, and the movie ends about the only way it can and still satisfy the movie viewer. As with all Tarantino films, there’s a vibrant soundtrack that adds to the atmosphere.
Director: Quentin Tarantino. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary (background). Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Edward Bunker, Quentin Tarantino. Runtime: 99 min.
Movie: Joy Ride. Released: 2001. IMDB rank: 6.5. IMDB link.
Notes: Pranksters, beware who’re screwing with. Watch this psychological horror before you pull your next prank. Fuller Thomas (Steve Zahn) gets out of jail, with little brother Lewis (Paul Walker) driving across the country to pick him up. Not even half a day passes before Fuller is imposing his personality on his brother, convincing him to pull a prank on a trucker, over a CB radio. The prank results in a man’s death, and now the trucker is after the brothers, Fuller’s love interest Venna (Leelee Sobieski), and Venna’s friend Charlotte. It has a B-movie feel, but’s it strangely compelling, and has a twist ending.
Director: John Dahl. Categories: Action, Horror Thriller. Writer(s): Clay Tarver, J.J. Abrams. Cast: Steve Zahn, Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski, Ted Levine. Runtime: 97 min.
Notes: Natural Born Killers, aka NBK, is director Oliver Stone’s satire (based on a story by Quentin Tarantino) of the violence that permeates American society, particularly on television. This is a deeply disturbing film, and given the ending, probably highly unsatisfying to the average viewer - but that’s probably exactly what Stone wanted.
Stone received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director, but NBK had no Oscar nominations, and the movie was panned as a glorification of violence. If you feel this way, too, upon watching it the first time, then watch it a few more times. It’s a worthwhile film to see, not just for anthropological reasons but also for Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of the psychopathic killer Mickey Knox, and excellent supporting performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey Jr.
Director: Oliver Stone. Categories: Action, Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller. Writers: David Veloz, Richard Rutowski, and Oliver Stone, based on a Quentin Tarantino story. Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Sizemore, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones. Runtime: 118 min ( 122 min director’s cut).
Movie: The Matador. Released: 2005. IMDB rank: 7.0. IMDB link.
Notes: Pierce Brosnan proves that he can go beyond his suave James Bond persona to this lecherous, cold-hearted but lonely and comedic hitman. Or as he calls it, “a facilitator”. This hitman is impotent, as far as his job requirements go. He’s fainting on jobs, face first into piles of donkey poop. He can’t seem to get himself to fire a weapon anymore, and tries to recruit help from an unwilling friendly stranger (Greg Kinnear) that he met in Mexico.
Director: Richard Shepard. Categories: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Richard Shepard. Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis. Runtime: 96 min.
Notes: What would you do to protect your family? Would you change your identity? Sean Archer (John Travolta) is an undercover agent trying to take down a “brilliant criminal mind”, Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). While Troy is in a coma, Archer takes his face, using a new surgical procedure. He does this because there’s a bomb set to destroy Los Angeles, and the only way he can find its location is to go deep undercover - as Troy. When Troy comes to, he takes Archer’s face, and the result is a movie that might have you saying, “how did they do that; how did they swap faces.” At least until you remember it’s just a movie. (The answer, in case you didn’t know, is that Cage and Travolta studied each other’s mannerisms so that they could swap roles.)
Director: John Woo. Categories: Action, Crime, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller. Writer(s): Mike Werb, Michael Colleary. Cast: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon, Dominique Swain, Colm Feore. Runtime: 138 min.
Notes: Keanu Reeves as Office Jack Traven is singled out by a terrorist who rigs a city bus. Who is the terrorist and why is he doing this? The bus cannot drop below a certain speed, else a bomb will go off, killing all the passengers. Traven must first get on the bus to have any chance of defusing the bomb, then he has to keep it at a speed above 50 mph. This action/ thriller won two Oscars in the categories of Best Sound and Best Effects (Sound Effects Editing).
Director: Jan de Bont. Categories: Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance, Thriller. Writer: Graham Yost. Cast: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Daniels. Runtime: 116 min.
Notes: Samuel L. Jackson plays a god-fearing bluesman named Lazarus who tries to “cure” Christina Ricci’s Rae, a messed-up young woman looking for love but destroying her life partying and hooking up with the wrong young men. He finds her badly beaten not far from his home. He takes her in, hoping to help her heal, but feels the need to restrain her with a large, heavy chain around her midriff, tied to his radiator. At least until she’s “right”.
Director: Craig Brewer. Categories: Comedy, Drama, Music. Writer: Craig Brewer. Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson. Runtime: 116 min.
Notes: Who knew that John Cusack could play such great bad guy? Cusack is hitman Martin Blank. He’s tough but vulnerable, which he proves during a job that takes him to his 10-year high school reunion in Grosse Pointe. He ends up falling in love with someone from his past, Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver). Except this throws a wrench in current assignment. This is one film that a true John Cusack fan will never tire of watching, not just for Cusack’s presence but the great supporting cast. There’s also a great 80s soundtrack, if you’re into that.
Director: George Armitage. Categories: Comedy, Crime, Romance, Thriller. Writers: Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, and John Cusack, based on a story by Tom Jankiewicz. Cast: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Piven. Runtime: 107 min.
Notes: Charles Grodin as the embezzling Jonathan Mardukas is an excellent comic foil, especially against Robert De Niro’s determined bounty hunter Jack Walsh, in this understated but entertaining movie. After jumping bail, Mardukas is being pursued by the Mafia, the FBI, and by bounty hunters. Jack Walsh catches “The Duke” and wants to collect his fee, but Mardukas’ other pursuers have their own plans. Walsh himself is getting tired of Mardukas’ nutty behavior, and realizes that capturing him wasn’t such a “midnight run” (easy job). He also has to contend with a rival bounty hunter creating all manner of hurdles.
Director: Martin Brest. Categories: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Thriller. Writer(s): George Gallo. Cast: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano. Runtime: 126 min.
Movie: Training Day. Released: 2001. IMDB rank: 7.5. IMDB link.
Notes: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Handsome, charismatic and talented Denzel Washington has very nearly always played good guys. In Training Day, he diverts from his typical roles to show us a cop, Alonzo, on the dark side, who respects no one, and goes through the day living by intimidation. Ethan Hawke is the unfortunate young cop, Jake, who gets paired up with him, and gets constantly bullied by him. Alonzo justifies his intimidation tactics as necessary for teach Jake street survival skills. But we and Jake know that Alonzo and the other corrupt police officers go way too far beyond the call of duty - in the wrong direction. The question is whether Jake has the inner strength to survive long enough to prove this.
Director: Antoine Fuqua. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): David Ayer. Cast: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Macy Gray, Eva Mendes. Runtime: 120 min.
