Irwin Winkler Movies

Jason Statham stands in for Charles Bronson in this remake of the 1972 action thriller of the same name, in which a veteran hitman teaches his trade to an apprentice who has a connection to one of his previous victims. Simon West directs from a script adapted by Karl Gajdusek. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

This TV drama series, produced and scripted by Irwin Winkler and Rob Cowan, is adapted from their feature film, The Net (1995), a thriller with Sandra Bullock as reclusive Venice, California computer expert Angela Bennett, whose life is threatened. Brooke Langton (Melrose Place) portrays Angela Bennett in this new interpretation. During the debut TV series episode, Angela is puzzled by a cryptic computer message on her screen and goes out jogging. On her return, she discovers her bank account closed, her credit cards canceled, and her identity wiped and switched. Files show that she has been given the name Elizabeth, and state secrets are now stored on her hard disk -- which explains why the feds capture her at gunpoint. A stranger, Trelawney (Joseph Bottoms), engineers her release, but his true program is a kill file. After navigating to the info he wants, he intends to delete Angela right out of existence. Her only hope is Sorcerer (voice of Tim Curry), a helpful but anonymous voice from cyberspace. Filmed in Vancouver, B.C., the series premiered July 19, 1998 on the USA Network. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Set in Iowa, Betrayed stars Debra Winger as an FBI agent who infiltrates a Klanlike white supremacist organization. Allegedly a woman of intelligence and perception, Winger throws caution and logic to the winds when she falls in love with local farmer Tom Berenger. Much to her surprise Berenger turns out to be the most rabid racist of all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A drug addict seduces his lover into sharing his chemical joys and together they begin a wrenching downward spiral into destruction in this unflinching, well-wrought drama. Before getting hooked on speed, the woman had a successful career. But, despite the efforts of those who would help her, the couple cannot seem to kick their habit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A pair of crooks conspire to rob the ticket booth at the Los Angeles Coliseum during a Rams game. Before they can perform the heist, the two must find precisely the right henchmen to join them. Each potential gang member must undergo a rigorous test of skill. Thanks to care and precise planning, the caper comes off smoothly and afterward the gang leader (Jim Brown) hides the money in the apartment of his ex-wife (Diahann Carroll). She only agrees to keep the money on the provision that he reform so they can get back together. Unfortunately, the wife's lust-crazed landlord (James Whitmore) busts into her house the next day and tries to rape her. During the struggle he kills her and then takes the loot. Later a crooked cop (Gene Hackman) investigates. Meanwhile, when the gang members learn that the loot is missing, they suspect a double-cross and engage in a huge battle. The cop finds the money and at first keeps it for himself. The head crook eventually figures out that the cop has it and so goes to him to make a little deal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Six months after one of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, crime and corruption sink to new levels of depravity as a pair of New Orleans cops work to clean up the streets. New Orleans has been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, opening the floodgates for a sea of criminals seeking to assert their control over the city's seedy underworld. But when the stakes are this high, there's sure to be corruption within the ranks of the local police force, too. When a veteran detective with a violent history (Val Kilmer) is assigned a new partner with a dark secret (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), the perceptive police psychiatrist (Sharon Stone) suspects that the officers may have become morally compromised by the chaos that threatens to consume the city that's already synonymous with vice and decadence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An in-name-only, direct-to-video sequel to 1995's blockbuster thriller The Net, The Net 2.0 begins with a new character - a stunning computer tech named Hope Cassidy (North Shore'sNikki DeLoach) - who travels to Istanbul, where she plans to take a new job. Yet Hope soon finds herself pursued by dozens of unsavory characters and underhanded types, who threaten to "erase" her identity by wielding the power of the internet's dark side. Helmed by Charles Winkler (the son of The Net's director, Irwin Winkler), The Net 2.0 co-stars Keegan Connor Tracy and Demet Akbag. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx becomes this drama from director Lasse Hallström. Kevin Spacey stars as Quoyle, a struggling, emotionally drained newspaper reporter suffering through a wretched marriage with the abusive Petal (Cate Blanchett), a promiscuous wild woman who tries to sell their daughter, Bunny, into adoption before she's killed in a car wreck. Retrieving his daughter, Quoyle sets out for Newfoundland, his ancestral home, with his long-lost Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench). Although he initially finds life on the island to be as forbidding and severe as Agnis herself, Quoyle gets work as a shipping columnist for the local newspaper "The Gammy Bird," owned by eccentric fisherman Jack Buggit (Scott Glenn). Quoyle's work soon finds an appreciative audience and he begins to rebuild his life, dating local single mother Wavey (Julianne Moore), learning some sea craft, discovering his family's dark history, and finally earning some self-respect. Agnis, in the meantime, starts her own successful business and faces a traumatic incident from her childhood involving Quoyle's late father. The Shipping News (2001) co-stars Rhys Ifans and Pete Postlethwaite. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Night and the City is a remake of the 1950 Richard Widmark vehicle of the same name. Major changes: As played by Robert DeNiro, the Widmark character, one Harry Fabian, is no longer merely a two-bit tout but instead a two-bit lawyer; and the film is set in New York, as opposed to the London setting of the original. While embroiled in a lawsuit involving a boxer, Fabian becomes fascinated in the world of championship prizefights. Always susceptible to get-rich-quick schemes, Fabian tries to organize his own big boxing event, but to do that he needs the help of hardnosed promoter Alan King--and to get to King, Fabian uses the promoter's father, former boxer Jack Warden, to act as front man. Fabian scurries around lying and double-dealing in order to sell percentages of the upcoming bout, while King warns Fabian of the consequences should anything unfortunate happen to the ailing Warden. Disaster plagues Fabian as his boxers fail to pass their physicals, and Warden dies while setting up the big event. Pursued by King and his creditors, the terrified Fabian is urged by girlfriend Jessica Lange to get of town. Instead, Fabian decides to face up to his failings for the first time in his life, and stands his ground for the final, fatal confrontation. Like the earlier Widmark film, the 1992 Night and the City is based on a novel by Gerald Kersh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A French music lover befriends a once-great American jazz artist and attempts to save him from self-destruction in this moody drama. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon portrays Dale Turner, a fictional musician inspired by a number of famed jazz figures, including Bud Powell and Lester Young. Largely forgotten in his home country, Turner has moved to Paris in search of a more appreciative audience. He finds it in the form of Francis Borler (Francois Cluzet), a bebop aficionado who befriends the expatriate player. Borler soon becomes familiar with Turner's darker side, including his struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. Fearing for the musician's life, the fan becomes his caretaker, an arrangement that leads to a brief improvement in Turner's health and fortunes but places great emotional strain upon them both. Director Bertrand Tavernier pays great attention to the visual and aural details of the jazz world, with outstanding musical supervision provided by Herbie Hancock. 'Round Midnight's greatest asset, however, is Gordon's Academy Award-nominated performance, informed by his own life experiences. His naturally fascinating presence combines with the film's obvious love of the music and its milieu to provide what many have hailed as one of the more authentic and affectionate presentations of the jazz world on the silver screen. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's brutal character study incisively portrays the true rise and fall and redemption of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, a violent man in and out of the ring who thrives on his ability (and desire) to take a beating. Opening with the spectacle of the over-the-hill La Motta (Robert De Niro) practicing his 1960s night-club act, the film flashes back to 1940s New York, when Jake's career is on the rise. Despite pressure from the local mobsters, Jake trusts his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) to help him make it to a title bout against Sugar Ray Robinson the honest way; the Mob, however, will not cave in. Jake gets the title bout, and blonde teenage second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), but success does nothing to exorcise his demons, even as he channels his rage into boxing. Alienating Vickie and Joey, and disastrously gaining weight, Jake has destroyed his personal and professional lives by the 1950s. After he hits bottom, however, Jake emerges with a gleam of self-awareness, as he sits rehearsing Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront speech in his dressing room mirror: "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody." Working with a script adapted by Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader from La Motta's memoirs, Scorsese and De Niro sought to make an uncompromising portrait of an unlikable man and his ruthless profession. Eschewing uplifting Rocky-like boxing movie conventions, their Jake is relentlessly cruel and self-destructive; the only peace he can make is with himself. Michael Chapman's stark black-and-white photography creates a documentary/tabloid realism; the production famously shut down so that De Niro could gain 50-plus pounds. Raging Bull opened in late 1980 to raves for its artistry and revulsion for its protagonist; despite eight Oscar nominations, it underperformed at the box office, as audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" films in the late '70s and early '80s. The Academy concurred, passing over Scorsese's work for Best Director and Picture in favor of Robert Redford and Ordinary People, although De Niro won a much-deserved Oscar, as did the film's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Oscar or no Oscar, Raging Bull has often been cited as the best American film of the 1980s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Peter Hyams made his feature-film directing debut with this clumsily paced crime film concerning two Los Angeles vice-squad detectives. Michael Keneely (Eliott Gould) is the swaggering non-conformist and Patrick Farrel (Robert Blake) is the cocky follower. The two cops live for their work and spend most of their time busting call girls, massage parlor employees, and homosexuals. Keneely and Farrel eventually come to the conclusion that every criminal act in Los Angeles is due to the efforts of crime lord Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield). The boys begin to harass Rizzo to the point of distraction, but their singular attempts to arrest Rizzo cause them to become the targets of, not only the criminal population, but the police force as well. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, a stereotypical hippie couple hitchhikes around California and meets various odd people ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide