George Belanger Movies

A lonely man's search for companionship soon takes him to dangerous and unexpected places in this erotically charged drama. Luis Antonio Vargas (Antonio Banderas) is a successful coffee salesman living in Cuba in the 1880s. Luis has had little luck finding love among the women of his native island, and he sends away to America for a mail-order bride. To his pleasant surprise, his fiancée from the United States, Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie), turns out to be not only beautiful but passionate and devoted. But Luis' happiness proves to be short-lived when he learns that Julia is not the person he imagined her to be, and detective Walter Downs (Thomas Jane) appears, trying to get to the bottom of Julia's mysterious past and possibly deadly secrets. Original Sin is based on the novel Waltz Into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich, which Francois Truffaut previously adapted for the screen as La Sirene du Mississippi. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

For his second outing as James Bond, Timothy Dalton is working on his own rather than on behalf of the British Secret Service in this follow-up to The Living Daylights). When his American friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison), an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is seriously injured by drug dealer Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), 007 is out for blood. There is precious little time for the usual Bondian quippery and campiness, resulting in a marked increase in bloodletting (including the "implosion" of secondary villain Anthony Zerbe). A climactic highway chase involving an oil tanker and a helicopter is the highlight, as well as Benecio Del Toro in an early role as the psychotic henchman Dario. Licence to Kill's intensified taste for violence lessened Bond's box-office value, and helped keep 007 off the screen for another six years before Pierce Brosnan took up the mantle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gaby: A True Story is about a young woman -- the child of rich European refugees living in Mexico -- who was stricken with cerebral palsy at birth. Though her body is completely paralyzed, her mind is unaffected, and she is able to become a college graduate and an acclaimed author. Rachel Levin won acclaim in the title role, but Norma Aleandro received an Oscan nomination for Best Supporting Actress. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

John Schlesinger directed this fact-based drama - adapted from Robert Lindsay's bestseller of the same title -- about two Californians, friends since boyhood, who are caught selling government secrets to the Soviet Union. Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) is an all-American boy, studying for the priesthood in a seminary. But Boyce decides to drop out of school, and with the help of his father (Pat Hingle), a FBI agent, he gets a job working for the CIA in a message-routing center. While reading the messages, Boyce is shocked to learn that the CIA is involved in fixing Australian elections. Watching the Watergate hearings on television, he feels an ever-mounting sense of outrage at the arrogance of the U.S. government and decides to do something about it. Deciding to supply the CIA messages to the Russians, he enlists his childhood friend Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) to help him. Lee is to deliver the CIA secrets to a Russian operative (David Suchet) at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. But Lee is an unreliable drug dealer, and his sloppy spy trail leads the two old friends into more trouble than they bargained for. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Choices of the Heart (aka In December the Roses Will Bloom Again) recounts the life and death of Irish lay missionary Jean Donovan. Together with three American nuns, the 27-year-old Donovan (here played by Melissa Gilbert) was murdered in El Salvador in 1980. Constructed in a complex flashback-flashforward style, the film shows how Donovan went from a selfish, materialistic girl to a champion of human rights. Martin Sheen plays the priest who is instrumental in Donovan's turnaround. The increasing demand for the US to withdraw its support of El Salvador's military-oriented government is a secondary but vital ingredient to the full dramatic impact of this made-for-TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi