John Trace (Stephen Baldwin) is a cop, but he isn’t exactly on the good side of his superiors. That is a privilege reserved for officers who don’t have a tendency to shoot people, and Trace is exactly the opposite. He seems to have this gift for shooting people, and that has him in a certain amount of hot water – for the fourth time in the last few months. It’s attracting the wrong kind of attention.
Lucky for him it’s also managed to get noticed by Lieutenant Laine Devon (Chazz Palminteri), though that may not be a good thing either. At least it will help in the immediate term, for the Lieutenant can help Trace get out of the latest hole he’s found himself in by getting some evidence planted and taking the heat off. But that just lands him in an even deeper mess, for now he owes him one, and that’s when things really get ugly.
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Action on January 1st, 2007 by Chad Everett
Willis Newton (Matthew McConaughey) gets out of jail and returns home, only to find that he’s suited to only one sort of work – that of a criminal. So he joins up with two partners, and one of them decides that he’d rather rob banks in the daylight than at night, so they give that a try.
But on the very first bank robbery, that partner is shot, and Willis and the other partner barely get away. So they decide to go (back) to robbing banks at night. The only problem is they need some more bodies to help guard things outside while they are inside. Willis enlists the aid of his younger brothers, and a legend is born.
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When the United States military captures the leader of a terrorist group, it sparks a wave of terrorism in retaliation – notably against New York City. They send in Anthony ‘Hub’ Hubbard (Denzel Washington), the head of the FBI’s counter-intelligence task force, to try and find the source of the terrorist cells and stop the bombings before something more serious happens.
He’s teamed up with CIA agent Elise Kraft (Annette Bening) – a move that doesn’t make either of them particularly happy.
When they don’t seem to be making any progress, and the threat worsens, martial law is declared in Manhattan, and the authorities send in Major General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis), who has no concern for anyone. His job is simply to halt the terrorism with any means at his disposal, and this includes rounding up anyone of Arab descent and placing them into prisoner-of-war camps. As you may imagine, this doesn’t help matters.
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Drama on December 25th, 2006 by Chad Everett
Just about any movie that involves the mob will get a look for me, which will often suck me into such bombs as this one. The problem isn’t that it’s about the mob, it’s that it moves so darn slow. Sure, there’s plenty of blood along the way, but ultimately, nothing happens until the final ten minutes or so. That last ten minutes isn’t bad – it’s the eighty minutes leading up to it that is so painful to get through that makes it simply unbearable to get to that it’s just not worth the investment.
Claire (Kyra Sedgwick) is loyal to a fault. Beyond a fault, probably. She’s loyal to The Boss (Robbie Coltrane). She’s loyal to her partner Nick (ultra-cool Stanley Tucci, probably the only reason to watch the movie). She’s even loyal to mob moll Kitty (Robin Tunney), after a fashion.
The problem is that she ultimately can’t make a decision on who to be loyal to, and since Nick is dying and he usually tells her what to do, she’s in a bit of a pickle.
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Drama on July 2nd, 2006 by Chad Everett
I don’t know how likely it is that a high school kid (Elijah Wood) may actually discover a comet in this day and age, but it’s a movie, so I can make a leap of faith. Get past that and there are actually relatively few of them to make here.
That a cub reporter (Téa Leoni) should stumble on the story prior to it breaking isn’t that bad, and Morgan Freeman is quite good as the president (he’s always quite good, so that’s no real surprise).
In any case, young Leo Beiderman (that’s Wood) spots something in his telescope, and sends it to his friend Dr. Marcus Wolf to confirm – but before Dr. Wolf can deliver the results of his findings to anyone, he is involved in a horrific crash and presumed dead. Moreover, when it is determined that he was correct, and the comet spotted in the telescope is on a collision course for the Earth, it’s decided that the best thing to do is to keep it a secret to keep panic to a minimum.
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Action on March 18th, 2006 by Chad Everett
Put-upon Alan tries to help out his dad (played by Kevin Dunn, a somewhat absentee father) by picking up a small batch of toys from his truck driver pal, so that he can sell them and make some money for their toy store before his dad returns from a trip.
It’s only his luck that he gets this first batch out and activates them before they are supposed to be released – only to find out that over-achiever Larry (played by the great Jay Mohr) used the password of his buddy Irwin (David Cross) to order some defense department computer chips to bring the toys to life, give them a real kick. It looks like it may have been just a bit too much.
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