Dick Cusack Movies
In this romantic comedy, a man loses the love of his life, only to find her heart beating in the body of someone new. Architect Bob Rueland (David Duchovny) is happily married until his wife Elizabeth (Joely Richardson), a zoologist, dies in an auto accident. A year later, Bob is still dealing with his loss when he meets Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver), a shy woman who waits tables in an Irish/Italian restaurant run by her grandfather Marty (Carroll O'Connor). Bob falls for Grace at first sight, and she's attracted to him as well, but what he doesn't know is that a year ago Grace was the recipient of a heart transplant -- and that Elizabeth was the donor. Return to Me was directed and co-written by actress Bonnie Hunt, who also appears in a supporting role as Grace's best friend Megan; the cast also includes Robert Loggia, James Belushi, and David Alan Grier. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Duchovny, Minnie Driver, (more)
John Cusack plays Myrl Redding, a horse trader who locks horns with a rancher who has callously mistreated two of his horses, as well as their handler, a Crow Indian. When the law gives Myrl no justice, he is forced to take matters into his own hands, leading to a cycle of violence and chaos. The Jack Bull was written by Cusack's father, Dick, who also plays a small part as the jury foreman in the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cusack, John Goodman, (more)
Just as the university research team is about to prove that their new technique will permit water to be used as a fuel, their laboratory is sabotaged and the lab manager is killed. Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) stumbles onto the scene and manages not only to witness the sabotage, but to escape from it. When he tries to talk about it to authorities, he discovers that they think he and the other project survivors committed the crime. In reality, a group of energy companies have conspired with interested parties in the government to completely erase all notion of the existence of a way to use water as fuel. The project sponsor (Morgan Freeman) wants Eddie to turn himself in, but before he can do that, he must find enough evidence to clear himself and his friends. But in order to succeed, Eddie must avoid assassination attempts by the real perpetrators. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, (more)
This latter-day romantic screwball comedy stars Sandra Bullock as a love-starved subway toll booth operator, Lucy. Lucy pines for regular customer Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher), but the self-absorbed attorney pays her no heed. One day, Peter is beaten by a gang of thugs and tossed onto the tracks. Lucy rescues him from death. While he is comatose in the hospital, a comment she makes at his bedside is misinterpreted, and she then allows his family members, who haven't seen Peter in awhile, to believe that she is his fiancée. Peter's parents, Ox (Peter Boyle) and Midge (Micole Mercurio), take a liking to Lucy. But Lucy takes a liking to Peter's brother Jack (Bill Pullman), though Jack is suspicious about her claim to be Peter's intended. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, (more)
This 1993 box-office smash partly adheres to the 1960s TV series on which it is based and partly goes off on several tangents of its own. Harrison Ford stars as Dr. Richard Kimble, convicted of murdering his wife. While being transferred to prison by bus, Kimble is involved in a spectacular bus-train collision (one of the best of its kind ever filmed). Surviving the disaster, Kimble escapes, vowing to track down the elusive professional criminal whom he holds responsible for the murder. Dogging the fugitive every foot of the way is U.S. marshal Sam Gerard (an Oscar-winning turn by Tommy Lee Jones), who announces his intention to search "every whorehouse, doghouse, and outhouse" to bring Kimble to justice. Unlike his dour TV-series counterpart Barry Morse, Jones plays the role with a sardonic sense of humor: when a cornered Kimble screams, "I didn't kill my wife," Gerard shrugs and famously replies, "I don't care." Once the premise has been established, scripters Jeb Stuart and David Twohy and director Andrew Davis pull off several audacious plot twists, ranging from Kimble's rendezvous with a sympathetic lab technician to a jaw-dropping dive into a huge waterfall. The second half of the film offers one surprise after another (including the true identity of the murderer), brilliantly avoiding the letdown that plagues many movie adaptations of old TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, (more)
- 1992
Overexposed starts out as a "heavy breather of the week" TV movie and develops into a truly involving suspense tale. Marcy Walker plays a wife and mother, stalked by wacko Terence Knox. This isn't just the usual hit-and-run harassment; Knox is a businessman who has an "X-rated" video of an adulterous affair, with Walker as "star." He had tricked her into sleeping with her years earlier; now he plans to destroy her marriage (her husband is his business associate) and then claim her for himself. Based on fact, Overexposed was filmed in Chicago by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
In this crime drama set during the 1940s an honest detective and his task force take on the mob in old Chicago. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Dudley Moore stars as Emory Lesson, an advertising genius whose finds himself committed to an insane asylum in Tony Bill's Crazy People. Emory becomes tired with creating phony ad campaigns and decides to create his own campaigns that tell the brutal truth. Since sex sells, Emory designs an explicit ad campaign consisting of unadorned sexuality. The campaign is so offensive that his colleagues have Emory put in a mental institution. At first Emory resists, but under the tutelage of a concerned psychiatrist, Dr. Liz Baylor (Mercedes Ruehl) and the tender love of Kathy (Daryl Hannah) a beautiful patient, Emory begins to like it in the mental home. Befriending the cute and lovable patients in the mental ward, Emory discovers that the crazy people are natural-born advertising geniuses and Emory utilizes their genius for a new ad campaign. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Daryl Hannah, (more)
The Package, a thriller involving political assassination and intrigue, is an excellent action feature using a familiar theme and providing good performances by the cast. Boyette (Tommy Lee Jones) is a prisoner entrusted to Gallagher (Gene Hackman) for transportation back to the United States. Boyette escapes and Gallagher must find him. In doing so, Gallagher finds himself getting into far more than he had bargained for as he becomes involved in a political assignation plot that he must stop. Both Hackman and Jones are excellent in reprising familiar roles. Hackman is never better than when portraying the decent man in a precarious position, and Jones plays Boyette with the same cunning and intelligence that he brought to The Executioner's Song. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy, (more)
Perhaps it was his collaborator Shel Silverstein who said to screenwriter David Mamet "Lighten up. Do a comedy." Whatever the case, Things Change was a welcome change of pace for Mamet, both as scenarist and director. Don Ameche also goes against his usual grain by playing a downtrodden Chicago shoeshine boy (if one can call an 80-year-old a "boy") who is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. Not having much of a future anyway, Ameche has agreed--for a hefty sum--to take the rap for a gangland rubout. Mob henchman Joe Mantegna is assigned to keep an eye on Ameche over the weekend to make sure he doesn't try to weasel out of his agreement. Mantegna has been ordered to remain in Ameche's Lake Tahoe hotel, but the young guy takes a liking to the old loser. Like Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail, Mantegna takes Ameche on one last fling around Nevada. The location photography is terrific, and Ameche even more so. One would like Things Change to be equally as good, and while it never comes up to its potential, it remains a pleasant means to while away 100 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Ameche, Joe Mantegna, (more)
Writer/director John Sayles' dramatization of the most infamous episode in professional sports -- the fix of the 1919 World Series -- is considered by many to be among his best films and arguably the best baseball movie ever made. This adaptation of Eliot Asinof's definitive study of the scandal shows how athletes of another era were a different breed from the well-paid stars of later years. The Chicago White Sox owner, Charlie Comiskey (Clifton James), is portrayed as a skinflint with little inclination to reward his team for their spectacular season. When a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner) gets wind of the players' discontent, it offers a select group of stars -- including pitcher Eddie Cicotte (Sayles regular David Strathairn), infielder Buck Weaver (John Cusack), and outfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (D. B. Sweeney) -- more money to play badly than they would have earned to try to win the Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Sayles cast the story with actors who look and perform like real jocks, and added a colorful supporting cast that includes Studs Terkel as reporter Hugh Fullerton and Sayles himself as Ring Lardner. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cusack, Clifton James, (more)
- 1986
Vital Signs stars Ed Asner and Gary Cole as father and son, both prominent surgeons. Asner's skills have diminished as his alcoholism increases. Cole returns to his home town to straighten his dad out. What no one knows is that Cole himself is a substance abuser, addicted to morphine. After several near-disasters and squabbling denials, father and son make a mutual pact to wean themselves away from their addictions--with tragic results. Vital Signs is a better than average "affliction of the week" TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
With a plot that is a cross between a teen, low-brow farce and a coming-of-age story, Class opens with scenes of two best friends -- nerdy whiz Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) and carefree jock Skip (Rob Lowe) -- going around in lingerie; they also barf on a double date, break into a quiet meeting at a girls' school, and generally behave as emotional throwbacks. But when the nerd Jonathan is picked up in a Chicago bar by Skip's mother Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset), the tone changes completely. The affair between the student and the older woman is torrid until they rendezvous in New York and Ellen dumps Jonathan because she finds out he is not a Ph.D. candidate from Northwestern University. Meanwhile, Jonathan does not know who Ellen is until Skip brings him home for the Christmas holidays and the two clandestine, September-May ex-lovers come face to face with the truth. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Lowe, Jacqueline Bisset, (more)
- 1983
This made-for-TV film is an Americanized remake of the 1975 German film The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (based on the novel by Heinrich Böll). Shorn of most of her movie-star glamour, Marlo Thomas plays Kathryn Beck, whose one-night stand with handsome Ben Cole (Kris Kristofferson) all but ruins her life. Cole is suspected of being a political terrorist; as a result, Kathryn is seized by the authorities and relentlessly questioned. Her ordeal intensifies when she becomes the target of a ruthless investigative reporter. When she seeks legal aid, Kathryn finds that her basic civil rights aren't even as well protected as those of the fugitive Cole. Act of Passion: Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck premiered on January 24, 1984, minus the Act of Passion portion of the title, which was added later to pump up rerun ratings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Skokie is the true story of a critical test of Constitutional rights in Illinois. In 1977, a small band of American neo-fascists calling itself the National Socialist Party of America plans to stage a swastika-dominated demonstration and rally. Their intended site is the Chicago suburb of Skokie, a town populated predominantly by Jews--many of them survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish ACLU lawyer John Rubinstein is compelled to lobby for the National Socialists' freedom to express their views, despite his own inner turmoil over defending the very people who'd destroy him. The most vocal opponent to the planned rally is Skokie senior citizen Max Liebman (Danny Kaye), who spent five years in Hitler's death camps. Ernest Kinoy's teleplay for Skokie is fair-minded to a fault, presenting all points of view with equanimity, proving that there are no simple solutions when the fundamental right of Free Speech is involved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This quietly compelling film explores the hardships and anxieties of high school with intelligence, sensitivity, warmth and humor. Chris Makepeace stars as a shy, bookish student who has recently moved to Chicago and begun a new school. There he finds himself the target of a group of punks led by Matt Dillon (ideally cast as the weasel-like bully), who threaten him each day to turn over his lunch money for protection...or else. When he stands up to them, he nearly loses his dental work before being saved by Ricky Lindemann (Adam Baldwin), a hulking loner rumored to have murdered his own brother. Makepeace offers the boy a job as his bodyguard, and the two become unlikely friends -- that is, until the ousted bullies find a champion of their own who challenges Lindemann. When Lindemann refuses to fight back, he disappears into reclusion, and the bullying begins anew, worse than ever. Makepeace then learns the truth about Lindemann's past: he did indeed kill his brother, but the death was an accident while the two young boys were playing with a gun, and Lindemann lives tortured by guilt as a result. Just when things seem at their worst, the bodyguard returns to face his nemesis as Makepeace and Dillon square off in the final showdown of good versus evil. The real strength of the film is its handling of the relationships between its characters, particularly between Makepeace and Baldwin, and Makepeace and his family (Martin Mull and Ruth Gordon). My Bodyguard is light but thoughtful entertainment with a Rocky theme that's suitable for the entire family. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chris Makepeace, Adam Baldwin, (more)
