Wolfgang Glattes Movies

Based on the novel by John Katzenbach, author of Just Cause (1995), this prison camp drama combines elements of A Soldier's Story (1984) and the classic Stalag 17 (1953). Colin Farrell stars as Lt. Tommy Hart, a second-year Harvard Law School student who enlists to fight in World War II but ends up being taken prisoner by the Germans. When a murder at the Nazi-run Stalag Luft 13 leaves a black Tuskegee airman named Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Dashon Howard) accused of the crime, high-ranking prisoner (and fourth-generation war hero) Col. William McNamara (Bruce Willis) persuades camp commandant Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures) to allow the prisoners to hold their own trial. Hart is recruited to defend his fellow officer, but as he reluctantly investigates, he discovers that not all of his fellow allied soldiers are fighting the same war and that his "client" may well have been framed. In the meantime, it becomes apparent that McNamara is using events to mask his true intent, a mission to destroy a nearby munitions plant that he still intends to carry out despite his incarceration. Hart's War (2002) co-stars Vicellous Shannon, Cole Hauser, Rory Cochrane, and Jonathan Brandis. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Tommy Lee Jones returns as United States Marshall Sam Gerard, the role that earned him an Academy Award, in this sequel to the 1993 blockbuster The Fugitive. Gerard has been assigned to escort a federal prisoner to a maximum security prison in Missouri. On the same flight is Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), who has been arrested and charged with the murders of two Federal agents, though he insists he's innocent. The plane is involved in an accident leading to a crash, and after helping to rescue some of the passengers, Sheridan escapes. The State Department informs Gerard that finding Sheridan and putting him back behind bars is a top priority, and Gerard sets out on his trail, with the very much uncalled-for assistance of eccentric FBI agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.). However, Gerard soon begins to wonder just how Sheridan became such an important man in the eyes of the government, while Sheridan is determined to find out who turned him in to the authorities. U.S. Marshals also features Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, and Kate Nelligan. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Bill Murray teams up with his biggest co-star to date (with the exception of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) in this family-oriented comedy. Jack Corcoran (Bill Murray) is a motivational speaker who makes his living advising others how to tie up the loose ends of their lives, but he has plenty of his own left dangling. Jack is emotionally at the mercy of his mother (Anita Gillette) and his fiancée Celeste (Maureen Mueller), while his booking agent Walter (Jeremy Piven) keeps promising him bigger and better things that don't materialize. Jack has grown up believing that his father died before he was born while trying to rescue a drowning child, but he learns that was not the case at all -- Dad spent a long career working as a circus clown, and died only a few weeks ago. However, Dad was kind enough to bequeath Jack a large stack of debts and his only tangible asset, an Indian elephant named Vera (Tia). Jack is in no position to keep a pachyderm at home, and he has two options for getting rid of the animal -- sell Vera to Terry (Linda Fiorentino), a mean spirited animal trainer, or donate her to Mo (Janeane Garofalo), a zoologist who hopes to return her to the wilds. Either way, Jack has to get Vera from the East Coast to California, and in order to make an important speaking engagement, he and the elephant have five days to cross the country. Larger Than Life also features Matthew McConaughey as an excitable truck driver; Keith David, Harve Presnell, and Pat Hingle also highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

One of the most famous real-life UFO abduction cases on record becomes this character-driven drama from sci-fi screenwriter Tracy Torme. D.B. Sweeney stars as Travis Walton, a forestry worker who disappears one night during an encounter with a flying saucer. Authorities treat with skepticism the outrageous story related by the only witnesses to the event, Travis' five co-workers, who include his best friend and future brother-in-law, Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick). A state lawman (James Garner) finds a tabloid newspaper in the crew's pickup truck and quickly ascertains that tensions had arisen between Walton and a surly fellow logger (Craig Sheffer), leading him to conclude that a murder cover-up is underway. However, all of the men pass lie detector tests and the case becomes stalled until the shocking last-minute reappearance of Travis, who tells a literally fantastic story involving his whereabouts for the past week. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In this dystopian fable, a librarian wife and mother becomes the childbearing pawn of a Christian theocracy. In the near future, as war rages across the fictional North American Republic of Gilead and pollution has rendered 99 percent of the female population sterile, Kate (Natasha Richardson) sees her husband killed and her daughter kidnapped while trying to escape across the border. Kate herself is transformed into a handmaid -- a surrogate mother for one of the privileged but barren couples who run the country's fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the bizarre cult of the handmaids, which mixes Old Testament orthodoxy and misogynist cant with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate soon finds herself ensconced at the home of the Commander (Robert Duvall) and his frosty wife, Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway). Forced to lie between Serena Joy's legs and be penetrated impersonally each month by the Commander, Kate longs for her vanished earlier life; she soon learns that since many of the nation's powerful men are as sterile as their wives, she may have to risk the punishment for fornication -- death by hanging -- in order to sleep with another man who can provide her with the pregnancy that has become her sole raison d'être. When that other man turns out to be Nick (Aidan Quinn), the Commander's handsome, sympathetic driver, Kate grows attached to him -- and eventually pregnant with his child. Only the mysterious rebel affiliations of her fellow handmaid, Ofglen (Blanche Baker), seem to offer any chance of giving her unborn child a life of freedom -- or finding the daughter she already lost. Loosely adapted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale also features Elizabeth McGovern in a small but pivotal role as Moira, a "gender traitor" who befriends Kate at the handmaids' reprogramming center. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Also released under the title The Rites of Summer, this film follows the adventures of pampered city boy Alan Block (Sean Astin) when his parents ship him off to a wilderness camp. Once there, Alan and the other three campers must attempt to live up to the tough expectations of their guide, Vic (Kevin Bacon), who is determined to push the kids as far as he can--and maybe farther. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

A star-studded cast portrays political movers and shakers in this drama about politics and the media. Richard Gere is Pete St. John, a gilt-edged "image" advisor to the likes of powerful and often crooked politicians -- including a South American candidate for the top office in his country and, reluctantly, a conservative industrialist named Jerome Cade (J.T. Walsh). Cade is after a Senate seat vacated by Sam Hastings (E.G. Marshall), a liberal politician who fits in with the views that Pete once upheld. When things start to go wrong, it looks like Cade's gruff advisor Arnold Billings (Denzel Washington) might hold one of the keys to Pete's discovery of the truth about Cade -- and may be the reason why Hastings is leaving his job. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Bob Fosse's fact-based tale of Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratten's short life and gruesome death focuses less on Stratten (played by Mariel Hemingway) than on her husband/manager, sleazoid pornographer and all-around failure Paul Snider (Eric Roberts, ideally cast). He sees the young beauty as his meal ticket and sets out to pimp her in the adult entertainment business. He marries her and appoints himself her career manager; soon after, she attracts the attention of Playboy executives and wins a spot in the magazine. As her success increases however, so does Snider's alienation as he finds himself left out in the cold. His jealousy begins to consume him; she spurns him on the advice of her new friends; he goes berserk and confronts her. The same murder-suicide inspired the made-for-television Death of a Centerfold. This was choreographer/filmmaker Bob Fosse's final film. ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi

"It's showtime!" In this part film à clef, part musical phantasmagoria, director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of amphetamines to juggle a new Broadway production while editing his new movie, not to mention ex-wife Audrey (Leland Palmer), steady girlfriend Kate (Ann Reinking), a young daughter, and various conquests. Joe cannot, however, avoid intimations of mortality from white-clad vision Angelique (Jessica Lange) that lead him to look back at his life as he heads for a near-inevitable coronary and his departure from this mortal coil with the appropriate razzle-dazzle. Taking his cue from Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Fosse moves from realistic dance numbers to extravagant flights of cinematic fancy, as Joe meditates on his life, his women, and his death. Following a similarly dark revisionist vein as Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977), Fosse shows the stiff price that entertaining exacts on entertainers (among other things, he intercuts graphic footage of open-heart surgery with a song and dance), mercilessly reversing the feel-good mood of classical movie musicals. Critics praised Fosse's daring even as they damned his self-indulgence, while Scheider was lauded for giving the best performance of his career. Though not a disastrous failure, All That Jazz came nowhere near the popularity of 1978's Grease, as late '70s audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" movies. For all its excesses, Fosse's fiercely personal approach turned All That Jazz into another striking work from one of the few directors able to make, and experiment with, movie musicals after the 1960s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Based on the novel by Harold Robbins, this is the story of Loren Hardeman, Sr., a Midwestern automobile manufacturer (Lord Olivier) who pins his future on The Betsy, a "wonder car" named after his daughter (Kathleen Beller). The Betsy is designed to last practically forever, which doesn't rest well with the "planned obscolence" mindset of the auto industry. Flashbacks cover his career from his 40s to the present, when he is in his 90s. Hardeman, Sr. has a weak-willed son, Hardeman, Jr., (Robert Duvall) who is forced into taking charge of the family business. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Telly Savalas, James Mason and Robert Culp join together to discover a hidden cache of $6 million in Nazi gold in this action caper retitled both Hitler's Gold and The Golden Heist. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Heron of Foix (Assaf Dayan) hears the call of the ocean and leaves his school in Paris to walk to the sea. He meets the fair Claudia (Anjelica Huston) and the two fall in love and journey together to escape the ongoing Hundred Years War. They witness the brutal and bloody murder of a peasant who is drawn and quartered by the sadistic Sir Meles (John Hallam), the unforgiving tax collector who hates the poor. The couple seeks refuge in a monastery where the Father Superior (Anthony Nicholis) refuses their request to be married. This slow-paced but beautifully lensed feature marks the screen debut for Anjelica Huston. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi