Christopher McQuarrie Movies
As the man once voted onto Premiere Magazine's "Top 25 Future Powers Under 35" list, one might suspect that the weight on writer/director Christopher McQuarrie's shoulders could become too heavy to bear with less than a handful of feature films to his credit. Though McQuarrie's talent as an emerging director may have been difficult to gauge given the mixed reaction to his directorial debut, The Way of the Gun (2000), his talent for creating off-beat and believable characters could well be the saving grace that keeps his career in the fast lane. Born in Princeton Junction, NJ, in 1968, McQuarrie attended high school with future collaborator Bryan Singer before relocating to Australia following graduation to work at a boarding school. McQuarrie returned stateside shortly thereafter, finding employment at a New Jersey detective agency in the following few years. His knowledge of the criminal mind paid off when Singer approached him to co-write the screenplay to Singer's debut feature Public Access, and the film went on to win the Grand Jury prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. McQuarrie spent the following year refining his script for Singer's sophomore feature, The Usual Suspects. Following the film's successful premier at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, The Usual Suspects earned McQuarrie an Oscar for Best Screenplay. The film's smart mix of sharp dialogue and quirky characters, combined with a killer twist few saw coming earned the writer a notable reputation as a talent to watch for. After that success, McQuarrie made a series of attempts to deviate from the familiar criminal element in his writing, but all met with rejection from studios. Actor and friend Benicio Del Toro convinced him that he may have a few more lawless yarns to spin, and after scripting television's The Underworld, McQuarrie began work on the film that would ultimately become his directorial debut, The Way of the Gun. Immediately lambasted by critics as a cheap Quentin Tarantino rip-off, audiences seemed a bit more forgiving in response to the film concerning a kidnapping gone awry; and while everyone agreed that the film was by no means a classic, may cited it as a solid start to McQuarrie's career as a director. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi- 2014
Tom Cruise stars as a soldier who lives out the last day of his life over and over again in this Warner Bros. sci-fi production from driector Doug Liman. Emily Blunt and Bill Paxton co-star, with Dante Harper and Joby Harold providing the script. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- 2013
Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine in this sequel to the member of the X-Men's first solo outing. Mark Bomback and The Usual Suspects' Christopher McQuarrie penned the script, which takes its inspiration from the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Marvel miniseries from the 1980s dealing with the character's adventures in Japan as he fights ninjas in the ceremonial garb of the samurai. Knight and Day's James Mangold directs. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hugh Jackman
- 2013
- PG13
- Add Jack the Giant Slayer to Queue
The beloved fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk gets the big-screen treatment courtesy of director Bryan Singer (Valkyrie) and screenwriters Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After), Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), and Dan Studney in this fantasy adventure about a naïve farm boy who attempts to rescue a beautiful princess from a race of vengeful giants. When Jack (Nicholas Hoult) inadvertently opens a passageway that allows giants to cross into our reality, the towering titans stake their claim on the world of humans. Should they succeed, Jack's kingdom will be but the first of many to fall. Now, in order to save his people and rescue a noble princess, Jack must summon every ounce of bravery to drive out the invading giants. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nicholas Hoult, Stanley Tucci, (more)
- 2012
- PG13
- Add Jack Reacher to Queue
The Usual Suspects' Christopher McQuarrie brings Lee Child's Jack Reacher character to the big screen with this Paramount Pictures release starring Tom Cruise as the lone-wolf investigator on the hunt for a murderous sniper. Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins, Rosamund Pike, and director Werner Herzog co-star. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise
- 2010
United Artist adapts Douglas Preston's best-selling book based on a series of grisly European murders carried out between 1968 and 1985. Christopher McQuarrie (Usual Suspects) provides the screenplay for producer Tom Cruise, who is circling the project as a potential star vehicle. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
American tourist Frank (Johnny Depp) meets a mysterious beauty who drags him into a dangerous world of intrigue and espionage while traveling through Europe in director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's paranoid thriller. When Frank met Elise (Angelina Jolie) on the train, he thought it was a chance encounter. Little did Frank realize it was all part of a much bigger plan, one that would soon find him dodging bullets through both the historic streets of Paris and the winding canals of Venice. Now, the faster Frank and Elise run, the more intense their romance grows. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, (more)
At the absolute height of World War II, German generals hatch a daring plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler and effectively render the German war machine impotent. Directed by Bryan Singer, Valkyrie stars Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the real-life mastermind behind the elaborate plot known as Project Valkyrie: a plan to assassinate Hitler and overthrow his government from the inside. Stauffenberg has been a loyal soldier and an asset to the Reich for his entire military career, but after losing an eye, a hand, and three fingers in an Allied bombing, he reaches a breaking point. The destructive madness that his country is unleashing on the world has become too terrible for the colonel to stand silent. He joins the resistance movement -- a treasonous act, punishable by death -- and risks his life and the life of his family for the chance to change history. Comprised of high-ranking officials working in secret, the German Resistance has access to the inner workings of the government and military, putting them in the perfect position to dispatch the dictator and then use his own official contingency plan to seize power -- before the army, the S.S., and loyal party members can put someone just as diabolical in the Führer's place. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, (more)
- 2007
A study in the psychology of incarceration goes horribly awry in this film based on the notorious 1971 Stanford University experiment that placed undergraduate students in the roles of prisoner and guard, only to fall apart within 24 hours. Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun) takes on double duty as screenwriter and director. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
In this suspense thriller, two small-time crooks make a bid for the big time with disastrous results. Robin (Juliette Lewis) is carrying a child as a surrogate mother for a wealthy couple, Hale and Francesca Chidduck (Scott Wilson and Kristin Lehman) when she's kidnapped by Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro), who believe that the adoptive parents will pay a large ransom to ensure the safety of both mother and baby. The kidnappers soon discover that they're out of their league when they're confronted by Mafia-connected lawyer Joe Sarno (James Caan) and a pair of hired killers, Jeffers (Taye Diggs) and Obecks (Nicky Katt); at the same time, Parker finds himself increasingly attached to Robin. The Way of the Gun marked the directorial debut of screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, whose script credits include The Usual Suspects and Public Access. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ryan Phillippe, Benicio Del Toro, (more)
Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars' worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, "Verbal" Kint. Kint's nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton's misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they'd be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze's violent reputation is so infamous that he's said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, (more)
- 1994
Investigating the murder of a chiropractor's wife, Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) and Simone (Jimmy Smits) suspect that the victim's husband is the guilty party. Elsewhere, Simone's friend (Isabel Glasser) finds out that her young son is hiding a gun, and while moonlighting as a security guard, Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) is attracted to the person he is protecting, who lives in mortal fear of her father. This is the legendary NYPD Blue episode in which, while sharing a shower with his lady love Sylvia (Sharon Lawrence), Andy Sipowicz unabashedly displays his bare backside (and viewers couldn't say they weren't warned). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Before making their Oscar-winning film The Usual Suspects, director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie made their first film -- this low-budget independent feature and Grand Jury Prize winner at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. Public Access examines the power and dangers of mass media consumption upon a small-town community. Ron Marquette plays Whiley Pritcher, a stranger in the small community of Brewster, who lands a job as the host of a local public access call-in show. On his program he asks the simple question "What's wrong with Brewster?" and gets all manner of call-in complaints -- from discrimination at the school to political corruption at the town hall. Soon, Whiley becomes a local celebrity and an arbiter of public opinion. As his power grows, he makes a pact with Bob Hodges (Burt Williams), Brewster's mayor, and begins an affair with Rachel (Dina Brooks), the town librarian. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ron Marquette
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