Donald E. Westlake Movies

When a teenage boy (Penn Badgley) begins to suspect that his new stepfather (Dylan Walsh) is a notorious serial killer who preys on broken families, he races to gather the evidence that will back up his radical claim before it's too late. The 1987 thriller that shot Lost star Terry O'Quinn to cult stardom serves as inspiration for this remake penned by J.S. Cardone and directed by Nelson McCormick. Sela Ward, Jon Tenney, and Amber Heard co-star in a Screen Gems release. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two very violent men have conspired to steal a valuable solid gold image of an African deity from the museum in Mali where it is being kept. They had it smuggled out with a number of well-made but very cheap replicas. The plan was to give each of the replicas to the members of a new squash club as a diversion, and profit from the original (worth $1 million) themselves. There is a slip-up, however, and the real statue goes to one of the players. The deliveryman now has to track down all the statues, and in this antic caper comedy, that's easier said than done. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, the ancient curse of a priceless ruby, known as the Byzantine Fire, comes into play when it is accidentally stolen by a group of thieves, headed by Gus Cardinale (Christopher Lambert). The crooks soon discover that their heist might have been more trouble than it was worth when they are pursued by the police, the CIA, the Turkish government, and the local underworld. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Terry O'Quinn plays The Stepfather in this intelligent, unsettling chiller. We'd tell you O'Quinn's character name, but he has so many. You see, O'Quinn has been a stepfather many times over, romancing and marrying widowed women in several different states. After each wedding, everything is blissful -- at least, until O'Quinn's new wife and kids fail to measure up to his notions of perfection. Then he kills them en masse, and moves on to his next victims. Shelley Hack and Jill Schoelen co-star as O'Quinn's latest wife and stepdaughter, who prove to be yet another disappointment to him. An adroit witches' blend of Ozzie & Harriet and Psycho, The Stepfather was scripted by suspense veteran Donald E. Westlake. A lesser sequel, Stepfather 2, followed in 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this undistinguished crime drama, Peter Coyote plays a thief on the run after an attempt to rob an armored car in upstate New York ends in the death of a little girl. Her father sends a hitman (Philip Sayer) to avenge her death, and the rest of the film is a long series of near-misses as the hitman chases the thief, until the latter ends up in England at the home of a friend whose wife owns an amusement park. But in this jet age, an ocean does not offer much of a barrier, and the chase continues on British soil. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this comedy a trio of undercover government cops in Miami decide that it would be a good idea to open a bogus fencing operation so they can trap criminals. When the crooks find out, trouble ensues and the fun begins. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death in this drama based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake. Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother. As it turns out, the bank that Earl and his brother hit was controlled by gangster Mailer (Robert Ryan). Macklin learns that he's on the mob's hit list as well, so he teams up with his old partner Cody (Joe Don Baker) to take on Mailer and his second in command, Jake Menner (Timothy Carey). The Outfit also features a top-notch supporting cast, including Karen Black, Sheree North, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Jaeckel, and Anita O'Day; Marie Windsor and Elisha Cook, Jr. also appear, 18 years after their memorable turn together in The Killing. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Peter Yates directs the early '70s comedy caper The Hot Rock, based on the Donald Westlake novel and adapted for the screen by William Goldman. Robert Redford stars as John Archibald Dortmunder, a former jewel thief just released from prison. His brother-in-law, Andrew Kelp (George Segal), recruits him to steal a diamond from a museum. They are hired by Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn), an ambassador from Central Fatawi, whose people consider the stone to be sacred. John and Andrew assemble a team with Alan Greenberg (Paul Sand) and Stan Murch (Ron Leibman). They successfully pull off the job until the guards arrest them and Alan swallows the diamond. Alan's father (Zero Mostel) helps him break out of jail, which leads to a series of other heist attempts. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Jean-Luc Godard directed this brightly colored, pop-art homage to American crime cinema, which somehow finds room for extended commentary on leftist politics and the corrupt nature of advertising. Paula Nelson (Anna Karina) is a mystery woman (Is she a reporter? Perhaps a spy?) who used to be involved with Richard, a man who is now an outspoken Communist and has been linked to the murder of a foreign agent. Paula wants to silence Richard before he starts making trouble for her, but she can't find much hard evidence that's he's still alive outside of a recently discovered tape recorder that plays his recorded rants on current political issues. While speaking with Typhus (Ernest Menzer), a small time hood who knows about Paula's relationship with Richard, shots ring out and suddenly Typhus is dead. As Paula tries to find a way to get rid of the body, she tries to discover who killed him and why, as a pair of lackadaisical hoods (Laszlo Szabo and Jean-Pierre Leaud) follow her around Paris. Filled with references to American genre cinema and dedicated to Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray, Made In U.S.A. was the last film Godard would make with his one-time wife and frequent collaborator Anna Karina, and it was filmed simultaneously with another feature Godard released in 1966, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. The admittedly flimsy plot was loosely adapted from the novel The Jugger by Donald E. Westlake (published under the pseudonym Richard Stark); Westlake wasn't paid for the rights, and he prevented the film from being released in the United States until after his death in 2008. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide