Richard Claus Movies

A father risks his life to rescue a child kidnapped by armed revolutionaries in this action drama, which marks the acting debut of singing star Marco Borsato. Still dealing with the death of his wife, Eduard (Borsato) is a chef from the Netherlands who has come to Africa to open a restaurant of his own, with his young son Thomas (Siebe Schoneveld) in tow. Thomas soon strikes up a friendship with Abu (Andrew Kintu), a boy whose father works along side Eduard at the eatery. While things seem fine in the city where they live, war has broken out in a nearby country, and one of the leaders of a rebel faction (Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga) is filling the ranks of his army with stolen children. Abu goes missing, and Thomas suspects foul play; in time, Eduard sets out to find the boy at his son's urging, but as he makes his way into a war zone, he finds he's on a more dangerous errand than he ever imagined. Meanwhile, Abu is suffering tortures he never imagined as an eleven-year-old foot soldier. The Silent Army is a re-edited version of Wit Licht (aka White Light), which received poor reviews upon its release in late 2008 despite considerable success at the Dutch box office. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Nine-year-old Tony (Jerry Maguire's Jonathan Lipnicki) has just moved with his parents (Tommy Hinkley and Pamela Gidley) to a small town in the Scottish Highlands, where his father is overseeing the building of a golf course for old squire Lord McAshton (John Wood). Tony is picked on by his new classmates and starts dreaming about vampires at night, until one fine evening his dreams seem to summon Rudolph (Rollo Weeks), an aristocratic, wee vampire. Rudolph is among the vegetarian variety of vampires, but tells Tony that his diet has weakened his flying powers. After Tony guides Rudolph to some unsuspecting cows, on whose blood his new friend feasts, a friendship is born. Rudolph introduces Tony to his father (Richard E. Grant), mother (Alice Krige), and siblings, all of whom have been in hiding for three centuries as they wait for a comet to pass by that will make them human if they possess a magic amulet. Rudolph's dad, however, is missing part of the amulet, which turns out to have been stolen by Rudolph's uncle centuries ago and is now in the possession of none other than Lord McAshton. To further complicate matters, a vampire hunter (Jim Carter) is skulking around and causing no end of trouble. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

A mute American working on a low-budget movie runs afoul of the Russian mafia in this internationally produced thriller. Billy (Marina Zudina), a special-effects makeup artist who is unable to speak, is in Moscow working on a cheapie slasher flick directed by Andy (Evan Richards), her sister's boyfriend. Late one night, Billy returns to the set to pick up some equipment and stumbles on what appears to be the filming of an actual snuff film. Watching, unseen, as an "actress" (Olga Tolstetskaya) is bludgeoned to death before her very eyes, Billy flees the set, pursued by the snuff film's crew. Eventually, she escapes and tells her story to her sister, Karen (Fay Ripley), and Andy. The film crew convinces the police that it was simply some special effects that Billy witnessed, then they start a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the hapless Americans. The intrigue soon leads Billy and her friends to "The Reaper" (Alec Guinness), the shadowy financier of an entire snuff-film underground. Director Anthony Waller's screenplay for Mute Witness began as a tale of gangsters in 1930s Chicago, but he rewrote it to take advantage of Russia's analogous present-day climate -- and the country's cheap sets and labor. Unexpected problems, from a diptheria epidemic to unexpected fines at the customs gate, nearly sank the production. The director convinced Guinness to appear in the film several years before principal photography began; the veteran thespian was paid nothing for his scenes, which were shot in a single morning in Germany. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

This film by Doris Dorrie concerns two men who fight over one of their wives. Angelica (Sunny Mellis) is a fairly conventional housewife who is concerned about her marriage, because her husband Victor (Heiner Lauterbach) has been ignoring her. So Angelica calls in a remedy, her petite friend Lotte (Katharina Thalbach) to light some fire under Victor. Lotte has no problem in doing that, because she enjoys the result, but this time the fire turns into a conflagration that runs out of control. With Lotte taking off from the incendiary effects of her actions and Victor obsessed with chasing after her, Angelica's original problem is reversed, and now Lotte is suffering the consequences. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Although classed as a documentary, this look at the illicit, explicit side of night life in West Berlin spends enough time in the brothels and bedrooms of middle-class Berliners to satisfy the voyeur, without bothering to add any commentary that might actually provide a direction for the sequence of unlinked vignettes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide