When a kickboxing police inspector is murdered, his kickboxing twin brother infiltrates the Russian mob in order to see justice meted out--as painfully as possible. A slimmed-down Jean-Claude Van Damme is surprisingly effective as the lead(s), but the real star here is gritty Hong Kong director Ringo Lam (probably best known for City on Fire, the film that inspired Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs), who makes a lethal American debut with this hard-edged, convoluted film, which uses the identical-sibling gimmick to considerably darker effect than the goofball Double Impact. Some incredible stunt work and a terrifically ruthless final reel make this underrated action film a winner, although fans of Species may be somewhat disappointed that costar Natasha Henstridge never fully displays the assets that made her famous. --Andrew Wright
Since 1970 The US Federal witness protection program has relocated thousands of witnesses - some criminal some not - to neighbourhoods all across the country. Every one of those individuals shares a unique attribute distinguishing them from the rest of the general population and that is somebody wants them dead. Get lost with Mary McCormack as the compelling and quirky hit series In Plain Sight comes to DVD! U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon (McCormack) works for the Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC) relocating and protecting career criminals compulsive liars thieves murderers and the occasional innocent bystander. With the help of her partner Marshall Mann (yes Marshal Marshall) and her beat-up beloved car she just may get through her workday on time to deal with her sort-if boyfriend her flaky sister and her ne'er-do-well mother.
Vinyl is an exciting new drama series that explores the drug- and- sex fueled music business of the 1970s, played out through the story of a NYC record executive trying to revive his label and keep his personal life from spiraling out of control. A dizzying ride through America's music-business landscape at the dawn of punk, disco, and hip-hop, the story is seen through the eyes of Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale, Emmy winner for Boardwalk Empire), a major-label executive with a dark past and darker present. With his company, American Century Records, facing a number of client crises, and with his A&R team having trouble landing important new acts, Richie, newly sober after years of drug and alcohol abuse, looks to sell his label to a West German conglomerate. But the deal ends up being overshadowed by a front-page scandal involving the murder of a sleazy Long Island radio-company owner, a crime in with Richie was directly involved. Facing jail time, not to mention the loss of his disenchanted wife Devon (Olivia Wilde) and their two kids, Richie ends up reverting to his old vices, but has an epiphany during a punk-rock concert at a Greenwich Village theater where the roof caves in on him literally.
Conman Kevin Franklin is on the run from the Mob. His only escape is to impersonate the long-lost friend of an uptight lawyer and move in with his family. Unfortunately the Mob soon discover his hideout.
Action mega star Jean-Claude Van Damme is back with a vengeance in Maximum Risk - an exhilarating thrill-packed adventure also starring Natasha Henstridge. Alain Moreau's (Van Damme) investigation into the death of his identical twin brother leads him from the south of France to the mean streets of New York City... and into the arms of his brother's beautiful girlfriend. Pursued by ruthless Russian mobsters and renegade FBI agents the duo race against time to solve his brother's murder and expose an international conspiracy. There's only one problem: all traces of his brother's life are rapidly disappearing and the one person who knew him best may not be telling all she knows.
Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) is not your average New York cop. Working in Chinatown has its multifarious cultural nuances and its fair share of ubiquitous enticement, both of which are reflected in detective Chen's weary face. He had to get into bed with the highest echelons of the Chinese Mafia as a way of augmenting his own career, while maintaining a semblance of control over the dime-a-dozen hoods who proliferate on this turf. To make matters worse, he now has to break in rookie detective Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg), who has asked to be assigned to the Chinatown division. Apparently Wallace is infatuated with all things Chinese, or is suffering from "Yellow Fever," as his fellow colleagues would have us believe. Chen, not one to suffer fools gladly, takes young Wallace under his protective wing, oft-warning the shady powers of the neighbourhood not to sink Danny into their sordid pool of corruption. But before he knows it, both he and Wallace are caught in a deadly ring of double-crosses, shady-dealings, murders, and car chases. And all of this under the suspicious eye of Internal Affairs. Part Serpico and part Hard Boiled, this film seems at first to be a major departure from director James Foley's previous work. However, Foley has frequently revealed a keen eye and understanding for emotionally complex relationships, especially between teacher and pupil (Glengarry Glen Ross) or father and son (At Close Range). This movie is no different. In fact, Foley's meticulous attention to the relationship between the wise, morally burdened Chen, and the naove, innocent Wallace morphs this otherwise tedious plot into a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Hats off to Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg, whose sympathetic chemistry creates an authentic and deeply personal connection, a factor that proves crucial to the film's poignant, disturbing finale. --Jeremy Storey
An undercover DEA agent (Liam Neeson) finds himself working with a nurse (Sandra Bullock) he meets during therapy to bring down a trigger happy Mafia leader (Oliver Platt)
A combination of award-winning talent and some of Hollywood's hottest rising stars combine in this hilarious comedy thriller in the vein of 'Naked Gun' and 'Airplane'. Rising star Micheal Rappaport reveals his comedic talents as Kevin Gower who stands on the threshold of marriage to his childhood sweetheart Deeann Emory (Christine Taylor) when his life is thrown into turmoil when one quiet afternoon he is assisted into waiting limousine by a local wiseguy Max (Christopher Walken) for a meeting with local godfather Sal Fortuna (Robert Forster). Running or in Kevin's case tripping sliding collapsing and colliding for his life he faces cross and double-cross in his side-splitting escapades and we laugh and cry as we wait to see if Kevin will ultimately survive or discover if he will have to finally Kiss Toledo Goodbye.
The Invisible Man continued its first year in increasingly tense and cryptic fashion. Anti-hero Darien has to keep up his spying gig in order to be fed an antidote to the side effects of the invisibility gland. Unfortunately it isn't working. The clock is ticking all the way to a tense finale, where the Quicksilver insanity threatens to consume him whole. There's lots of fun with the format on the way, of course. Darien encounters a ghost, a sperm thief and a hitman who likes to blind his witnesses. Some grander political backdrop comes to the fore as well, with the Chinese government seeking surreptitiously to obtain the gland. All the while there's a growing sense that the Agency has troubles of its own. In an unprecedented bit of audience participation, viewers were allowed to vote for the resolution of a story entitled "Money for Nothing". Fans went for the more interesting option, thankfully, and so an invisible bank raid pays off nicely for everyone. Creating constant conflict throughout the year is the lurking presence of arch-enemy Arnaud. The immediate resolution of that conflict is one of several surprise twists that singled out the show as more than standard TV SF fare. Not even a so-so cameo from Star Trek's Wil Wheaton could spoil the fun. On the DVD: The Invisible Man's second box set features even more extras than the first DVD set. Two cast commentaries are frequently comic, though with a constant sense of disappointment the show didn't go further than two series. There are lengthy interviews with the cast, too. But of real interest to fans will be alternate footage previously unseen in the UK. Some FX shots and script pages round out the package. --Paul Tonks
In the sweltering summer of 1965 everybody in Alabama went completely crazy especially 12-year-old Peejoe's glamorous Aunt Lucille. When she got rid of her abusive husband and hit the road to fulfill her dreams of Hollywood she left Peejoe with one explosive secret. And as she tried to outrun the long arm of the law on her hilarious journey Peejoe was left behind to discover which secrets are worth keeping in this poignant comedy about freedom and why it's always worth whatever it costs. Antonio Banderas' directorial debut.
Small quirky comedy thrillers such as Drowning Mona are one of the things that American cinema does best and far too rarely. Peter Steinfeld's appealing script attracted a solid cast of stars under the direction of newcomer Nick Gomez (whose previous work includes episodes of The Sopranos). It seems that someone has cut Mona's brake cables and she drove to her death by drowning. Bette Midler's Mona manages to make it entirely plausible that almost everyone might have wanted to kill her: from her son's business partner Eddie (Casey Affleck) to her husband's mistress Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis). The local police chief (Danny DeVito), already burdened with subordinates who refer to running away from danger as "securing the perimeter" and the impending marriage of his daughter (Neve Campbell) to the sweet but unreliable Eddie, has to make sense of the farrago of lies and half-truths which is all anyone will tell him. This is an ingenious tightly plotted film which is never too busy to scatter odd little gags at its margins; it's a tall tale, whose complicated telling is half the fun. On the DVD The DVD comes with the theatrical trailer, a director's commentary, interviews with the stars and four deleted scenes. The picture is 1.85:1 anamorphic and the sound is Dolby Surround. --Roz Kaveney
Charlie (Liam Neeson) is a legendary undercover agent who has been involved in more drug busts than he cares to remember except that his instinct for danger cool composure and nerves of steel have failed him. In this his final assignment a number of larger-than-life characters are drawn together for a comic story of drug deals. The combination of a trigger-happy Mafia hitman and cocky Columbian drug barons leaves Charlie in too deep. In an attempt to pull off his last mission before he loses the plot completely Charlie seeks a hilariously funny self-help therapy group and the aid of sexy nurse Judy (Sandra Bullock) in this comical gangster movie.
An ex-con just out of the joint finds himself with $5000 a convertible Lincoln and a beautiful woman; that's before he's forced to go on the run from the Mafia...
It's clear why Melanie Griffith saw Mark Childress's bestselling book Crazy in Alabama, as the perfect vehicle for herself. The role of Lucille, a beautiful, battered wife in rural Alabama who dreams of glamorous movie stardom, is tailor-made for her. Griffith's husband, Antonio Banderas, has done quite a respectable job guiding her in this, his directorial debut; her performance--compelling, funny, and warm--is her best since Something Wild. (She also looks simply smashing.) Otherwise, the film is a curious amalgam of genres: an antic, surreal Southern Gothic comedy combined with a deadly serious civil-rights parable. As the movie opens, in the summer of 1965, Lucille (Griffith) has just murdered her abusive husband and is blowing town for Hollywood with his head in a Tupperware container. Scenes of her wacky cross-country road trip are interspersed with incidents back in Alabama involving clashes between protesting blacks and murderously intolerant whites. One can't imagine how these two seemingly disparate narrative lines will come together, but they do, in a surprisingly effective manner. The moral of both stories turns out to be: "You can bury freedom, but you can't kill it". Stand-out performances by Robert Wagner, as Lucille's Hollywood agent; Rod Steiger, as a quirky Southern judge; Lucas Black (Sling Blade) as Lucille's highly principled young nephew; and, believe it or not, Meat Loaf, as a brutal, bigoted Southern sheriff give the film an additional boost. --Laura Mirsky
Reunited with a serial rapist who was never apprehended, Officers Carella (Dale Midkiff, Pet Cemetery) and Meyer are doing everything in their power to find him. But battling a demented mind requires a dramatic plan. Meet Officer Eileen Burke (Erika Eleniak, Under Siege, The Beverly Hillbillies). Ambitious and fearless, Eileen Burke has her mind set on saving lives and wants to prove not only to herself, but to all the women of the city, that she can catch this rapist. She decides to pose as ...
Vinyl is an exciting new drama series that explores the drug- and- sex fueled music business of the 1970s, played out through the story of a NYC record executive trying to revive his label and keep his personal life from spiraling out of control. A dizzying ride through America's music-business landscape at the dawn of punk, disco, and hip-hop, the story is seen through the eyes of Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale, Emmy winner for Boardwalk Empire), a major-label executive with a dark past and darker present. With his company, American Century Records, facing a number of client crises, and with his A&R team having trouble landing important new acts, Richie, newly sober after years of drug and alcohol abuse, looks to sell his label to a West German conglomerate. But the deal ends up being overshadowed by a front-page scandal involving the murder of a sleazy Long Island radio-company owner, a crime in with Richie was directly involved. Facing jail time, not to mention the loss of his disenchanted wife Devon (Olivia Wilde) and their two kids, Richie ends up reverting to his old vices, but has an epiphany during a punk-rock concert at a Greenwich Village theater where the roof caves in on him - literally.
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