Dahl, John

Rounders (Collector's Edition)

A little drunk on its own arcane exotica as a gambling movie, Rounders is a film that takes us inside a world of high-stakes card players but falls short on such essentials as character development, relationships, that sort of thing. Still, it is a real curiosity, written by a couple of guys (David Levien and Brian Koppelman) who appear to know something about the dark underbelly of card hustling for fun and profit. Matt Damon stars as a reluctant law student who can't put aside his subterranean career of playing poker and blackjack for big money. After he loses his post-grad nest egg to a weird Russian kingpin (John Malkovich)--and also loses his disgusted girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) in the process--Damon's character turns to an unreliable old buddy (Edward Norton) for a dangerous game of sharking wherever there happens to be a game underway: frat boys, cops, bad dudes, you name it. Norton appears to be living out every young actor's fantasy of re-creating Robert De Niro's prototypical head case in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and while his performance is burdened by obvious quotation marks, his estimable talent still shines through. Damon's charm and intelligence bring some oomph to the curiously flat proceedings, and while his hushed, soul-bearing scenes with Martin Landau (as a law professor who takes a shine to the kid) seem gratuitous, they're still nice to watch. Behind all this is director John Dahl (Red Rock West), who is not exactly at the top of his game here but who brings his distinctive toughness to the crime-noir tone. --Tom Keogh

Academy Award(R) winner Matt Damon (GOOD WILL HUNTING, Best Original Screenplay, 1997; THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) and Edward Norton (THE ITALIAN JOB) star in this story of passion, risk, and the extreme price of friendship! After losing a high-stakes card game, Mike (Damon) gives up gambling for law school and a fresh start with his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol -- CRADLE WILL ROCK). But then his best buddy (Norton) gets out of prison and in over his head with a ruthless card shark (John Malkovich -- BEING JOHN MALKOVICH). From there, Mike's strong sense of loyalty -- and the lure of the game -- draw him back to the tables in a game he cannot afford to lose! Also starring John Turturro (O BROTHER, WHERE ARE THOU?) and Oscar(R) winner Martin Landau (ED WOOD, Best Supporting Actor, 1994).

You Kill Me

Ben Kingsley is remarkable in You Kill Me, a comedy-drama with an absurdist touch. The Oscar-winning British actor plays Frank Falenczyk, an alcoholic hitman from New York sent by his boss, Roman (Philip Baker Hall), to dry out in San Francisco just when a new crime lord (Dennis Farina) is moving in on Roman's turf. Frank reluctantly follows instructions and takes a Bay Area apartment, finds a part-time job as a mortician, and attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Acquiring a thoughtful sponsor and friend (Luke Wilson) through AA, Frank begins reflecting seriously about his life and responsibilities, and even becomes romantically involved with a delightfully acerbic woman (Téa Leoni).

Feeling respected and loved in the early days of his sobriety, Frank does what a lot of people do in similar situations: take stock of past mistakes and be completely honest with everyone. When he reveals to his companions and AA group that he has, at times, seriously messed up his work as a killer because of booze, the universal response is supportive with only a streak of, well, moral ambivalence. From there, the sky's the limit for a hired gun with a boost in self-esteem. You Kill Me is the kind of movie that can get an audience to suspend disbelief significantly without drawing too much attention to that fact. But that doesn't mean the film's noir roots don't show. Director John Dahl (The Last Seduction) has made You Kill Me as tough as any other movie he's shot, and his fascination with human weakness and resilience in the face of unexpected obstacles enriches a wonderful story. --Tom Keogh

A street-smart mob comedy about a hitman (Kingsley) with a drinking problem that gets in the way of his killing. When mismatched people find a common calling the most unlikely relationships are formed and explored through dead-on performances by Kingsley Wilson and Leoni.System Requirements:Run Time: 93 minutes Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 796019805377

The Last Seduction

Whew. Linda Fiorentino is like a home-grown apocalyptic nightmare as the sizzling, sexy dame who thinks "sharing" is a dirty word. Fiorentino, a master of the double-cross, hooks up with naive Peter Berg, a nice guy desperate for a little adventure. There are endless twists to this cleverly vicious story, but the real draw is Fiorentino, whose performance is brilliant. She is the Everywoman you never want to meet: cool as ice, passionate, tough, self-satisfied, smart, and amoral. Bill Pullman is a surprise as a Machiavellian doctor who is almost her match. Definitely not a date flick, as this represents one vicious battle in the sexual wars. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) seems to have it all: beauty intelligence and a marriage to Clay a wealthy physician (Bill Pullman). But everything isn't enough for Bridget who persuades her husband to make dirty deals on prescription drugs and then runs with the profit. Now incognito in a mid-American small town. Bridget draws a naive local Mike Swale (Peter Berg) into a smoldering affair.Passion greed and revenge forge a desperate triangle between the three as Bridget draws her unknowing victims deeper into her deadly web of deceit. System Requirements:Running Time: 110 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: R UPC: 012236132172 Manufacturer No: 13217

The Great Raid (Full Screen Edition)

Nearly three years after it was filmed, The Great Raid finally appeared as a welcome reminder that good old-fashioned World War II movies never go out of style. While lacking the scale, prestige, and pulse-pounding momentum of Saving Private Ryan, this fact-based war drama benefits from a back-to-basics approach to realism and a rousing rescue climax that more than compensates for the slower passages that precede it. Adapted from the books The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Ghost Soldiers, it chronicles the five-day mission (in late January 1945) to rescue 511 American prisoners of war held by the Japanese at Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Under the direction of neo-noir specialist John Dahl (The Last Seduction), the film's three-part structure follows the raid mission led by Lt. Col. Mucci (Benjamin Bratt); the plight of the POWs at Cabanatuan, including malaria-stricken Maj. Gibson (Joseph Fiennes); and civilian resistance in Manila as carried out by real-life hero and Gibson's (fictional) would-be lover Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen), whose effort to aid the POWs is vigilantly monitored by the enemy Japanese. In keeping with war-movie traditions, Dahl handles character and action with no-nonsense intelligence, favoring a slow build over pumped-up adrenalin. By the time the miraculous rescue is executed with critical assistance by Filpino guerillas, The Great Raid has earned its stripes, honoring the brave men who carried out the most successful rescue mission in U.S. military history. --Jeff Shannon

In the epic tradition of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE GREAT RAID is an inspirational true story of the most triumphant rescue mission in U.S. military history! As World War II rages, the elite 6th Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war. Under the command of Lt. Col. Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt -- TRAFFIC), the men of the 6th will face the unthinkable by attempting the impossible! Also featuring James Franco (SPIDER-MAN 1 & 2), Connie Nielsen (GLADIATOR), and Joseph Fiennes (SHAKESPEAKE IN LOVE), this gripping big-screen hit captures a moment in time when men of honor became soldiers of destiny!

Red Rock West

With Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, writer-director John Dahl established himself as America's leading maker of tough, twisted, funny little neo-noir pictures. Red Rock West is a spare, tight reworking of noirish motifs--the lone man caught in a web of circumstance and betrayal, the rich femme fatale, the corrupt policeman, the wounded military veteran, the homicidal psychopath--that brings to mind classics from Detour to Out of the Past to Bad Day at Black Rock. Cage--warming up for his career-peak (so far) performance in Leaving Las Vegas a few years later--plays an unemployed former Marine (his leg injured in the truck-bombing of the base in Beirut) who stumbles into a nightmarish situation when he stops at a bar in the isolated Wyoming town of Red Rock West. With one fateful step, he's trapped; and no matter how hard he tries, he just can't seem to leave town. The late J.T. Walsh is (as always) splendidly corrupt as the bar owner who harbors some deadly secrets, and Dennis Hopper does a variation on his patented Blue Velvet/River's Edge psycho that suits the treacherous environs of Red Rock West just fine. --Jim Emerson

Joy Ride

Joy Ride follows the familiar conventions of road-movie thrillers with enough vitality to make everything old seem new again. A confirmed master of neo-noir suspense, director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) sets a consistent tone of humor and horror as Lewis (Paul Walker) and his black-sheep brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) drive from Salt Lake City to pick up Lewis's friend Venna (Leelee Sobieski) in Boulder, Colorado. En route, they play a practical joke via CB radio, inviting vengeful terror as an unseen trucker (voiced with exquisite menace by Silence of the Lambs villain Ted Levine) pursues them with relentless, homicidal aggression. Inevitable comparisons to Steven Spielberg's Duel fail to appreciate Dahl's unique talent for energizing B-movie formulas while injecting his own brand of rib-tickling excitement. While Zahn deserves extra credit in his first top-billed role, Joy Ride wins a badge of honor for everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon

It's all fun and games whene two brothers (Paul Walker and Steve Zahn) take off cross-country to bring home a pretty college friend (Leelee Sobieski). But the jokes end when a prank backfires and they find themselves stalked by a vengeful trucker who won't give up his relentless chase until somebody pays with their life.

Rounders

A little drunk on its own arcane exotica as a gambling movie, Rounders is a film that takes us inside a world of high-stakes card players but falls short on such essentials as character development, relationships, that sort of thing. Still, it is a real curiosity, written by a couple of guys (David Levien and Brian Koppelman) who appear to know something about the dark underbelly of card hustling for fun and profit. Matt Damon stars as a reluctant law student who can't put aside his subterranean career of playing poker and blackjack for big money. After he loses his post-grad nest egg to a weird Russian kingpin (John Malkovich)--and also loses his disgusted girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) in the process--Damon's character turns to an unreliable old buddy (Edward Norton) for a dangerous game of sharking wherever there happens to be a game underway: frat boys, cops, bad dudes, you name it. Norton appears to be living out every young actor's fantasy of re-creating Robert De Niro's prototypical head case in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and while his performance is burdened by obvious quotation marks, his estimable talent still shines through. Damon's charm and intelligence bring some oomph to the curiously flat proceedings, and while his hushed, soul-bearing scenes with Martin Landau (as a law professor who takes a shine to the kid) seem gratuitous, they're still nice to watch. Behind all this is director John Dahl (Red Rock West), who is not exactly at the top of his game here but who brings his distinctive toughness to the crime-noir tone. --Tom Keogh

Unforgettable

A string of insurmountable gaps in logic keeps this science fiction/thriller hybrid from director John Dahl (Joy Ride, The Last Seduction) from fully developing its intriguing premise. Ray Liotta stars as a medical examiner who is obsessed with finding his wife's killer. A possible solution is found in neurobiologist Linda Fiorentino's experimental serum, which transfers memories from one person to another--even from the deceased. Liotta injects himself with the serum, which allows him harrowing glimpses into other people's minds. But while each dose brings him closer to identifying the killer, it also puts him one step nearer to death. Dahl keeps the film moving briskly and wraps it in noirish photography, but he's let down by Bill Geddie's script, which asks viewers to swallow some implausible notions (the instantaneous success of the experimental serum, for one). --Paul Gaita

What is it like to enter into the mind of a psychopathic killer, to experience his thoughts...and the thoughts of his victims during their last, terror-stricken moments? David Krane (Ray Liotta, Hannibal) is about to risk his sanity and his life to find out. From the acclaimed director of The Last Seduction comes this well-paced, stylish (The Washington Post) thriller that propelsyou into a hallucinatory realm of heart-stopping suspense that never lets up.Accused of murdering his wife years ago in a blind, alcoholic rage, Krane is desperate to clear his name and discover the identity of the real killer. When local researcher Martha Briggs (Linda Fiorentino, The Last Seduction, Jade) unveils an experimental drug that allows the user to relive the memories of another person, living or dead, Krane sees his chance. Stealing a dose of the dangerously unstable compound, he injects himselfand embarks on a mind-bending quest for the truth that will plunge him into a realm of physical and psychic peril beyond his wildest nightmares.

Joy Ride

Joy Ride follows the familiar conventions of road-movie thrillers with enough vitality to make everything old seem new again. A confirmed master of neo-noir suspense, director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) sets a consistent tone of humor and horror as Lewis (Paul Walker) and his black-sheep brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) drive from Salt Lake City to pick up Lewis's friend Venna (Leelee Sobieski) in Boulder, Colorado. En route, they play a practical joke via CB radio, inviting vengeful terror as an unseen trucker (voiced with exquisite menace by Silence of the Lambs villain Ted Levine) pursues them with relentless, homicidal aggression. Inevitable comparisons to Steven Spielberg's Duel fail to appreciate Dahl's unique talent for energizing B-movie formulas while injecting his own brand of rib-tickling excitement. While Zahn deserves extra credit in his first top-billed role, Joy Ride wins a badge of honor for everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon

It's all fun and games whene two brothers (Paul Walker and Steve Zahn) take off cross-country to bring home a pretty college friend (Leelee Sobieski). But the jokes end when a prank backfires and they find themselves stalked by a vengeful trucker who won't give up his relentless chase until somebody pays with their life.

The Great Raid

Nearly three years after it was filmed, The Great Raid finally appeared as a welcome reminder that good old-fashioned World War II movies never go out of style. While lacking the scale, prestige, and pulse-pounding momentum of Saving Private Ryan, this fact-based war drama benefits from a back-to-basics approach to realism and a rousing rescue climax that more than compensates for the slower passages that precede it. Adapted from the books The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Ghost Soldiers, it chronicles the five-day mission (in late January 1945) to rescue 511 American prisoners of war held by the Japanese at Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Under the direction of neo-noir specialist John Dahl (The Last Seduction), the film's three-part structure follows the raid mission led by Lt. Col. Mucci (Benjamin Bratt); the plight of the POWs at Cabanatuan, including malaria-stricken Maj. Gibson (Joseph Fiennes); and civilian resistance in Manila as carried out by real-life hero and Gibson's (fictional) would-be lover Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen), whose effort to aid the POWs is vigilantly monitored by the enemy Japanese. In keeping with war-movie traditions, Dahl handles character and action with no-nonsense intelligence, favoring a slow build over pumped-up adrenalin. By the time the miraculous rescue is executed with critical assistance by Filpino guerillas, The Great Raid has earned its stripes, honoring the brave men who carried out the most successful rescue mission in U.S. military history. --Jeff Shannon

In the epic tradition of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE GREAT RAID is an inspirational true story of the most triumphant rescue mission in U.S. military history! As World War II rages, the elite 6th Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war. Under the command of Lt. Col. Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt -- TRAFFIC), the men of the 6th will face the unthinkable by attempting the impossible! Also featuring James Franco (SPIDER-MAN 1 & 2), Connie Nielsen (GLADIATOR), and Joseph Fiennes (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), this gripping big-screen hit captures a moment in time when men of honor became soldiers of destiny!