Paul Abbott Movies
Penny Marshall's feel-good comedy, invoking parts of Dead Poet's Society, Sister Act, and Private Benjamin, features Danny DeVito as Bill Rago, a divorced advertising man who is fired from his job. During an appointment at the unemployment office, a counselor finds him a job as a civilian instructor at the local Army base. At the base, he is assigned a group of eight army hardcases. Rago is supposed to increase this group's "basic comprehension." Sweating it out and unable to interest his students in anything, he finally latches onto Shakespeare. He turns the lecture into a master class on Hamlet with the students converting the Shakespeare tragedy into a rap musical. Looking askance at all this is drill sergeant Cass (Gregory Hines), who feels that the whole class is a waste of time. Finally winning the respect of his students, Rago now has to win the hearts and minds of the contemptuous Cass and his staff. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, (more)
The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, (more)
Tom Cruise juggles Martini shakers and ice cubes as the materialistic Brian Flanagan, a bartender who drops out of school to search for the perfect "rich chick" who will bankroll him into luxury. Brian meets up with bar veteran Doug Couglin (Bryan Brown) and they put together a dance-duo bar-tending act, taking five minutes to a mix a drink as they dance and toss gin bottles behind the bar to cutting-edge rock music circa 1988. The patrons, instead of demanding the booze, are dazzled by their antics and cheer them on. As a result, the bartenders become wildly popular -- in particular, Brian, who finds the bar babes falling all over each other to hop into the sack with him. As a result of their bar-tending success, they get hired to tend bar at a swanky disco, but there Brian and Doug have a falling out, and Brian takes off for Jamaica. There he meets vacationing New York City waitress Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) and the two fall in love. But then Brian meets rich New York fashion executive Bonnie (Lisa Banes) who wants to take Brian back to Manhattan with her to become her drink-mixing stud. When Jordan sees this, the love affair is put on hold. But not for long, as pangs of consciousness begin to filter through Brian's drunken haze. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown, (more)
