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.
Movie: Scent of a Woman. Released: 1992. IMDB rank: 7.6. IMDB link.
Notes: A blind but large-living Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino) takes a young man, Charlie (Chris O’Donnell) - who takes a job to “babysit” him - under his wing, living large and expecting Charlie to come along. Scenes worth watching:
Although it’s way over the top, seeing Frank (i.e., a “blind” Al Pacino) driving a Porsche at high speed is quite thrilling. Tension for viewers is built from the fear in Charlie’s face (he’s sitting in the passenger seat, giving instructions).
Sure it’s cheating because Pacino isn’t actually blind, but watch the ballroom tango sequence (in the video below) with him and Gabrielle Anwar (Donna) and you mightactually believe he is.
These are some of the reasons why Pacino won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade.
Director: Martin Brest. Categories: Comedy, Drama. Writer(s): Bo Goldman, based on a novel by Giovanni Arpino. Additional character credits: Ruggero Maccari, Dino Risi. Cast: Al Pacino, Chris O’Donnell, Gabrielle Anwar, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Runtime: 157 min.
Notes: Secret agent Jason Bourne has messed up an assignment whose scenario he setup. The result: two bullets in his back and a loss of memory. Missing two weeks, a fishing vessel picks him up at sea. Eventually, he heads through Europe, trying to piece together who he is, partly by instinct, but mostly thanks to the number of a Swiss bank account number inscribed on a cylinder implanted in his body. In the course of figuring out his identity, he fights off assassins, only to realize that his own government thinks he’s turned on them and is out to terminate him.
Director: Doug Liman. Categories: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller. Writer(s): Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron, based on the Robert Ludlum novel. Cast: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Coooper, Julia Stiles, Brian Cox, Clive Own. Runtime: 119 min.
Notes: Johnny Depp plays Joseph Pistone, an undercover FBI agent who goes undercover for five years as “Donnie Brasco”. Al Pacino’s Lefty Ruggiero befriends him, not knowing Brasco is setting up him. Ruggiero vouches for Brasco, and later Brasco has to make a difficult decision. If he leaves the organization, Ruggiero will be killed. If he doesn’t, he’s stuck, causing a deeper rift with his wife.
Director: Mike Newell. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Paul Attanasio, based on the book by Joseph D. Pistone and Richard Woodley. Cast: Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Michael Madsen, James Russo, Anne Heche, Gretchen Mol, Paul Giamatti. Runtime: 127 min (147 min extended).
Movie: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Released: 2007. IMDB rank: 7.7. IMDB link.
Notes: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Andy) and Ethan Hawke (Hank) are brothers. Andy’s addictions and embezzling lead to money troubles. Hank also has money problems in the form of an ex-wife who wants not only child support payments but money to send their child to a private school. In the meantime, Hank is carrying on with Andy’s wife (Marisa Tomei). Andy has a solution, and he bullies Hank into helping him rob their own parents’ jewelry store. On the weekend, when there’s an older employee working and guns won’t be needed. Except something goes wrong, disaster strikes, and wrong behavior is compounded with more wrong behavior from other characters. The story is partly told with a reverse timeline.
Director: Sidney Lumet. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Kelly Masterson. Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris. Runtime: 117 min.
Movie: When We Were Kings. Released: 1996. IMDB rank: 7.7. IMDB link.
Notes: When We Were Kings is a documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, about two of the greatest boxers that ever lived - Ali and Foreman - and possibly the greatest boxing match ever. The match took place in 1974 in Zaire, with Foreman the champ and just a few years out of his teens, and Ali already 32. The colorful Don King is the promoter, paying each boxer $5mil apiece. The music includes people like James Brown and B.B. King, and the documentary is comprised of event footage as well as interviews with numerous well-known people from the entertainment industry.
Director: Leon Gast. Categories: Documentary, History, Sport. Writer(s): n/a Cast: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Don King, James Brown, Spike Lee, Norman Mailer, Howard Cosell, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston. Runtime: 89 min.
