Jake Dengel Movies

Contenders is precisely what the two young Romanian immigrants in The Contenders are not. This doesn't stop them from giving their all in their attempts to find success in the U.S. In this story, the two men are roommates. They also have the same "day" job: they are dishwashers. Anton wants to be a moviemaker, but has pretensions which are well beyond his abilities. Ivo wants to be an actor, but has seemingly never bothered to do any formal study; he repeats a monologue from the movie On The Waterfront at all his auditions, with predictable results. Anton eventually gets some money to shoot an independent film, and immediately reneges on his promise to cast Ivo in the lead. Ivo, on the other hand, is smitten by the charms of a cute actress who, despite the unlikeliness of her being cast in anything at all, decrees that she will not do nude scenes. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Kenneth Pressman adapted his play Insider's Price for this turgid and morally-bankrupt motion picture entertainment. Forest Whitaker stars as Dekker, a hit man fed up with his profession and ready to quit -- right after one last job. This last job proves to be the looniest and most gruesome one of all -- an ex-gangster named Zidzyk (Lewis Smith) hires him for a hit. Zidzyk has found God and has set up his tabernacle in a porno parlor. He wants Dekker to ice his wife Jain (Sherilyn Fenn) and their infant child and requests that Dekker bring back a body part to him as proof of purchase. Dekker agrees to the terms and goes to visit Jain, who engages in an extending monologue that captures the heart of Dekker -- if not the audience. When Zidzyk realizes that Dekker is a softy, he hires a second hit man to do the job. Dekker knows his business and is ready to defend Jain and face the second killer. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Corey Haim takes on white supremacist rollerbladers in Prayer of the Rollerboys, the futuristic tale of teen angst and sweet love on skates. Haim stars as Chris Griffin, a pizza delivery boy whose younger brother Miltie (Devin Clark) gets caught up with the local drug-pusher gang, the Rollerboys. With the help of Casey (Patricia Arquette), a female cop out for revenge for her own brother's death, they help bring down the dreaded 'boys for good. But the deeper Chris and Miltie get into the crew, the scarier their racist attitudes become, especially when its revealed that repeated use of their drug will sterilize the entire population of L.A. outside of the Rollerboys' inner circle. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker was a made-for-TV factual drama about the elusive killer who terrorized Southern California in the summer of 1985. Richard Jordan and A. Martinez star as the two LA detectives heading up the investigation. So much time is taken up with police procedure that the Night Stalker himself is virtually a bit player in his own movie. The suspect, one Richard Ramirez (watch the film to find out who plays him), makes up for his long absences with a bravura closing scene. The film utilizes the clever (and tasteful) approach of showing the victims going about their everyday activities just before the murderer strikes, without resorting to re-enacting the murders themselves. By accident or design, Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker was telecast November 12, 1989--the very day that Richard Ramirez was sentenced to the gas chamber. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the William Kennedy novel of the same name Ironweed is set in the waning years of the Depression. Jack Nicholson plays Francis Phelan, a washed-up ballplayer (a onetime infielder for the Washington Senators) who deserted his family back in the 1910s when he accidentally killed his infant son by dropping him. Since that time, Phelan has been a shabby barfly, living from drink to drink; he spends his days palling around with Rudy (Tom Waits), with whom he works a motley series of jobs in exchange for a place to lay his head and an occasional jug of wine. Wandering into his hometown of Albany, New York, Phelan blearily seeks out his girlfriend and erstwhile drinking companion of nine years, Helen Archer (Meryl Streep), who has begun prostituting herself for drink and lodging. The two derelicts touch base in a mission managed by minister James Gammon, and later in Fred Gwynne's squalid gin mill. Over the next few days, Phelan takes a few minor jobs to support his habit, while his mind wavers between past and present. Eventually, a chance for a reconciliation with his wife (Carroll Baker) emerges. Directed by Hector Babenco following his enormous success with Kiss of the Spider Woman , Ironweed netted Oscar nominations for Nicholson and Streep. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This time, the crew of the Enterprise must tackle a double threat: A hostile Ferengi spaceship, and a sudden, debilitating loss of energy. The two opposing sides are forced to declare a truce and work together to locate the cause of the energy loss. The culprit turns out to be a computerized "interrogator," (Darryl Henriques) whose intractable sense of justice doesn't bode well for both crews. First telecast on October 24, 1987, "The Last Outpost" was scripted by Herbert J. Wright from a story by Richard Krzemien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amazingly, At Close Range was based on a true story. Bored teenager Sean Penn meets his prodigal father (Christopher Walken) for the first time in years. Though Penn is vaguely aware that his father is a criminal, he is nonetheless impressed by his dad's high life style and creature comforts. But Walken's veneer of charm is fragile indeed, and it becomes clear that he is willing to kill anyone--even his family--if they get in his way. When Walken rapes Penn's girl friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) to keep the boy from cooperating with the DA, it is only a warm-up for the horrors to come. The screenplay for At Close Range was written by Nicholas Kazan, the son of prominent film director Elia Kazan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just because "everybody does it," does that make it right? This is one of the questions posed by the made-for-TV romantic melodrama His Mistress. Robert Urich stars as high-profile tycoon Allen Beck, "happily" married to trophy wife Katherine (Linda Kelsey). When Allen takes a liking to his extremely ambitious employee, Anne Davis (Julianne Philips), he exercises his executive prerogative by taking the pliant Anne as his mistress, setting her up in a luxurious condo penthouse. At one point, Anne indignantly declares "I thought your supporting me was an insignificant gesture that has nothing to do with our relationship." His Mistress was first shown by NBC on October 21, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional characters in the novel were escape artist Harry Houdini and radical Emma Goldman. Both characters are all but eliminated in the film version, which only concentrates on three of Doctorow's many plot threads: The story of an immigrant artist (Mandy Patinkin) who becomes a movie director; the saga of "Gibson Girl" Evelyn Nesbit Shaw (Elizabeth McGovern), for whose sake playboy Harry K. Thaw (Robert Joy); kills architect Stanford White (Norman Mailer) and a lone black man's (Howard Rollins Jr.) quest for justice when his car is destroyed by a racist fire chief (Kenneth McMillan). This last subplot consumes most of the film's running time, to the overall detriment of the pacing. There are also several scenes involving an unnamed upper-middle-class family (headed by James Olson and Mary Steenburgen) who are evidently meant to be the audience's eyes and ears, but are frankly not terribly interesting. Back in 1981, Ragtime was given plenty of press coverage as the "comeback" picture for James Cagney, after twenty years in retirement. The problem is that Cagney's character (a police commissioner) isn't in the book, and his inclusion not only throws the story off balance, but necessitates the removal of several potentially interesting characters and events. Another detriment is the gratuitous (and illogical) nudity in the Evelyn Nesbit scenes, which earned the film its "R" rating. An ornate misfire, Ragtime is of interest today only for its remarkable cast of veterans and stars-to-be, including Pat O'Brien and Eloise O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Allen, Moses Gunn, Jeff Daniels and Fran Drescher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide