Doug Liman Movies

A knowing examination of the psyche of the modern American male, Doug Liman's debut comedy Swingers stars screenwriter Jon Favreau as the sensitive Mike, a struggling actor and stand-up comic looking for romance in the wake of the dissolution of a six-year relationship. Against his better judgment, he hits the town with his pal Trent (Vince Vaughn, in a star-making performance), a retro-hip smooth-talker who calls women "babies" and feels compelled to illustrate to Mike the error of his gentlemanly ways. First in Las Vegas and later in a series of hip L.A. nightspots, the duo and their other pals, including a guy named Sue (Patrick Van Horn), prowl for women, looking for kicks and cheap thrills. The difference is that while Trent wants sex, Mike wants love and romance. Only when he learns to simply be himself does he find what he's looking for. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

As Jane (Clea DuVall) puts it, "I keep trying to kill myself, but I keep getting interrupted," and a close look at her life gives a reasonable idea of why she's depressed about her current state of affairs in this dark, absurdist comedy. Jane hasn't been able to block out much of a career path, earning a meager living as a waitress at a low-rent greasy spoon; her boyfriend (Judson Mills) is an aspiring musician with little talent and even less charm; and her roommates -- Gina (Jennifer Aspen), a struggling actress, and Marvin (Richmond Arquette), a writer who can't write -- are driving her up the wall. Deciding she needs to do something, Jane embarks on a life of crime, getting a gun and giving robbery a try, with Gina and Marvin as her accomplices. Jane isn't much of a thief, however, netting little more than a few cases of Spam, and Gina and Marvin are not much of a help; desperate, she decides to take a stab at kidnapping, with a big-time film producer (Stanley DeSantis) as her target. See Jane Run was the debut feature from writer and director Sarah Thorp. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The best-selling suspense novel by late author Robert Ludlum comes to the screen for a second time, following a 1988 made-for-TV movie. Matt Damon stars as Jason Bourne, a barely alive amnesiac with a pair of bullet wounds in his back, pulled from the Mediterranean by Italian fishermen. Bourne's only clue to his own identity is a bank account number etched on a capsule implanted in his body. He quickly finds the Zurich bank where money, a gun, and a few identification documents await, but after he's pursued by security goons at the American consulate, Bourne realizes he can trust no one and offers a German gypsy named Marie (Franka Potente) ten thousand dollars for a ride to Paris. Encountering more professional killers bent on his destruction, Bourne discovers that he possesses a surprising degree of skill in combat, martial arts, and linguistics -- handy talents that clearly indicate his past includes work as a spy and assassin, but for whom? With Marie's reluctant help, Bourne edges closer to the truth, something CIA officials want concealed at all costs. The Bourne Identity co-stars Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, and Julia Stiles. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Faced with the likelihood of being sent to a foster home, Ryan (Ben McKenzie) runs away from the Newport Beach home of the Cohens, planning to ultimately escape to Texas. Actually, he gets no farther than an uncompleted building project, a "model home" conceived by Seth's mother, Kirsten Cohen (Kelly Rowan). Seth (Adam Brody) and Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) dedicate themselves to concealing Ryan from the authorities, and they form a bond of friendship when they see Kirsten secretly meet with and loan 100,000 dollars to Marissa's financially floundering father, Jimmy (Tate Donovan). Unfortunately, Marissa's jealous boyfriend, Luke (Chris Carmack), is in no mood to cooperate -- and by the time this episode comes to a climax, the audience has borne witness to a cataclysmic conflagration...and two arrests. ~ All Movie Guide

Destined to run an impressive 27 hour-long episodes (as opposed to the usual 22), season one of The O.C. wastes little time in setting up its premise: trouble-prone teenager Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), booted out of his Chino home and apparently foredoomed to a life of crime, is "rescued" by idealistic pro bono defense attorney Sanford "Sandy" Cohen (Peter Gallagher). Over the initial protests of his former beauty-queen wife, Kirsten (Kelly Rowan), Sandy invites Ryan to live in the pool house of the Cohens' lavish Newport Beach home in California's very upscale Orange County. Quickly making friends with the Cohen's intellectual-loner son, Seth (Adam Brody), Ryan also makes a good impression on his attractive next-door neighbor Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) -- much to the disgust of Marissa's jock boyfriend, Luke Ward (Chris Carmack). Unfolding in a serial-like fashion, the remainder of the season details the disintegrating marriage of Marissa's parents, Jimmy Cooper (Tate Donovan) and his avaricious wife, Julie (Melinda Clarke) (who later has an affair with the cast-off Luke); Sandy's job switch, which causes friction in his relationship with Kirsten vis-à-vis his sexy new law partner Rachel Hoffman (Bonnie Somerville); the decision by Sandy and Jimmy to jointly purchase Newport Beach's favorite restaurant, the Lighthouse; Marissa's self-destructive behavior during a vacation in Mexico, and her ill-fated association with the duplicitous Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley); Seth's dilemma as he tries to choose between two girlfriends, Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson) and Anna Stern (Samaire Armstrong); and the disruptive machinations of Kirsten's high-rolling father, Caleb (Alan Dale), and her hedonistic sister, Hailey (Amanda Rhigetti). The cliffhanger climax of The O.C.'s first season is dominated by two major events: the wedding of the series' two most selfish and mercenary characters, and some devastating news delivered by Theresa (Navi Rawat), Ryan's former girlfriend from his Chino days. ~ All Movie Guide

A movie maker unwittingly gets a bit too involved with his subjects in this darkly comic mockumentary. Andrew (Andrew Gurland) is a documentary filmmaker who wants to make a picture about modern-day mail order marriage. Andrew thinks he's found the perfect subject for his film when he meets Adrian (Adrian Martinez), a stocky snake enthusiast from Queens, NY, who earns his living as a doorman and has never had much luck with women. Adrian wants choose a bride from a professional marriage broker's agency called Paradise Girls, and Andrew agrees to foot the bill in exchange for the rights to make a movie about him. Adrian soon weds Lichi (Eugenia Yuan), an attractive Burmese woman, but Andrew is less than pleased to discover what Adrian really wants from his relationship is a woman who will feed mice to his pet python, make chili just the way he likes it, and keep the house spotless while occasionally indulging some of his odder sexual fantasies. Lichi isn't happy either, and at Andrew's urging she leaves Adrian and moves into Andrew's apartment until she decides what to do next. Andrew falls for Lichi, and before long he asks for her hand in marriage; however, her relationship with Adrian has stripped Lichi of her illusions, and she becomes a very demanding bride who loudly speaks her mind and has accumulated a large and expensive collection of pig-related nick knacks. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Many married couples have secrets, but one pair of lovebirds discover they've both been living dangerous secret lives in this action thriller laced with comedy. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and play Jane Smith and John Smith, a suburban couple whose marriage has started to go a bit stale after five or six years. Both wish for more excitement in their relationship, but as it happens, each of them is finding plenty of thrills elsewhere. Both Jane and John are world-class assassins who will take on perilous missions for the right price, but neither is aware of the other's secret life - Jane thinks her husband runs a successful construction company, and John believes his wife works on Wall Street. However, when John and Jane are both assigned to take out the same target, one Benjamin Danz (Adam Brody), they become aware of each other's secret lives, and suddenly both their careers and their marriage go through some dramatic and potentially deadly changes. Mr. and Mrs. Smith also stars Vince Vaughn as an assassin with John's company who still lives with his mother and Kerry Washington as one of Jane's associates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Apparently inspired by the success of the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11 and its sequels, the NBC series Heist spent its entire first season following a gang of clever and charismatic criminals as they prepared to rob three Rodeo Drive jewelers simultaneously on the eve of the annual Academy Awards ceremony. Dougray Scott played ringleader Mickey O'Neil, who engaged the series of a team of "specialists" -- chief among them Lola (Marika Dominczyk) and Ricky (David Walton) -- to carry out his elaborate scheme. As O'Neill's team pulled off a series of smaller robberies to finance the big caper, police detective Amy Sykes (Michele Hicks) began to dog their trail, determined to gather enough evidence to throw the gang into the clink before anything else was stolen. Alas, Amy was hampered not only by her squabbling partners, Tyrese Evans (Reno Wilson) and Billy O'Brien (Billy Gardell), but also by the fact that she had fallen in love with O'Neill. Others in the cast included Steve Harris as James Johnson, O'Neill's best friend/severest critic/sounding board, and Seymour Cassel as veteran career criminal Pops. To boost its initial ratings, Heist was unveiled by NBC on March 22, 2006, in the Wednesday-night time slot usually reserved for the league-leading Law & Order. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Following up his blockbuster action hit Mr. and Mrs. Smith, director Doug Liman turns to an entirely new genre -- sci-fi -- for this tale of an underground world of teleporters. Based on the novel by Steven Gould, Jumper concerns David (Hayden Christensen), a young man who quite literally wills himself away from his grim family life by teleporting to another place with the power of his mind. Years later, David is using his powers to raid bank vaults, seduce girls in London, lunch on the pyramids, and surf in Fiji. But he soon discovers that he is not the only one bestowed with this unique gift, and all is not well in the world of jumpers. There are people out there, such as Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), who view jumpers as a threat to all humankind, and have made it their mission in life to eliminate them. After jumping back to Michigan to get reacquainted with his long lost love, Millie (Rachel Bilson), David makes the acquaintance of experienced jumper Griffin (Jamie Bell). Informed by Griffin of a secret between jumpers and a shadowy group that seeks to destroy them, the pair soon finds themselves facing off against a legion of murderous opponents who won't stop fighting until every last jumper has been eliminated. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

The Valerie Plame scandal is brought to the screen with this docudrama entailing the outing of a CIA-agent during the George W. Bush presidency. Doug Liman directs, with Naomi Watts stepping into the lead role. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide