James Deuter Movies

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen concocted this stylish screwball comedic amalgam of Frank Capra and Howard Hawks. Tim Robbins stars as Norville Barnes, a dull-wit from Muncie, Indiana who wrangles a job with the big Hudsucker Industries. He has a singular idea for a new children's toy that he wants to present to corporate executive Sidney J. Mussberger (Paul Newman). As he makes his way up to Mussberger's office, the company president Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) is on his way down -- through the window of the forty-fourth floor boardroom! Hudsucker's death sets off a panic that Mussberger sees as an opportunity for taking over the company -- by installing a total incompetent in Hudsucker's place and devaluing the stock. When Barnes stumbles into Mussberger's office, Mussberger sees his pigeon and appoints Barnes as the new company president. The only problem is that the new product Barnes proposes for the company, the Hula Hoop, turns out to be a tremendous success, and Mussberger has difficulty manipulating his new corporate president. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A gangster's reputation as a tough guy is put severely to the test when he discovers that he has been made guardian to his dead sister's children. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

Small-time crook Johnny Stewart (Damon Wayans) decides to go straight to win a beautiful girl (Stacey Dash), and to prove it, he joins the mailroom of the credit-card firm for which she works. Needing money to impress her, Johnny steals a credit card, goes on a shopping spree and wins the girl. The story isn't over though, because a security guard who caught his theft on videotape is blackmailing Stewart to join his own credit-card ring. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Inheriting the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her late husband, covetous ex-showgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) wants to move the franchise to Miami, primarily to take advantage of the many personal perks she's been promised by that city. But Cleveland won't yield its lease on the Indians unless the year's attendance falls below 800,000. Figuring that chances for this are already good given Cleveland's inability to win a pennant, Phelps tries to make doubly certain that the fans won't turn out by ordering the club manager to put together the worst team possible. The new players include has-been Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), blind-as-a-bat pitcher Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), self-protective free agent Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), and Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes), who is constitutionally incapable of hitting straight. Surprisingly, this band of misfits begins winning games, so Whitton decides to break their spirit by forcing them to fly from game to game in a World War II prop plane, assigning them a rickety old bus for road games, and divesting them of their precious whirlpool.

Still, the team's talent and esprit de corps grows, especially after "Wild Thing" Ricky Vaughn dons a pair of glasses and is able to see where he's lobbing his 100-mile-an-hour pitches. Once the players are told that Phelps plans to dump them all whether they win the pennant or not, the team defiantly adopts an "us against the you-know-what" attitude. In a nailbiting 20-minute climax, the Indians face down their hated Yankee rivals in the pennant playoff game. The film's conclusion ties up several loose plot ends, notably the off-and-on romance between the irresponsible Berenger and his "ex" Lynn Wells (Rene Russo). Though set in Cleveland, Major League was filmed virtually in its entirety in Milwaukee, with the Brewers' play-by-play announcer Bob Uecker giving a terrific performance as the Indians' drink-besotted color commentator. The film represented not only the fictional comeback of the Cleveland Indians, but the actual comeback of producer/director David S. Ward, who'd been in a professional slump for several years. Though containing few surprises, Major League was a box-office smash, inspiring a 1994 sequel, inventively titled Major League II. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this film, based on a true story, convicted criminal Lee Umstetter (Nick Nolte) is sentenced to life in San Quentin prison, with no possibility of parole. Despairing at his interminable sentence, Lee spends his time reading and educating himself. When he writes and performs a play that attracts the notice of a film critic (Rita Taggart), she sets out on a quest to have him paroled. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

In this drama a veteran cop takes in a problematic adolescent who might have seen several policemen murdered. The old cop sees his action as a way of regaining his self-respect. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi