Robert King Movies

Family differences and personal grudges add drama to an already tense situation as the lives of a team of mountain climbers hang in the balance in this action drama. Peter Garrett (Chris O'Donnell) and his sister Annie (Robin Tunney) are the children of Royce Garrett (Stuart Wilson), an avid outdoorsman and climbing enthusiast who died when an accident left all three hanging from a single rope; Royce ordered Peter to cut him loose to save the lives of his kids, even though he knew it would mean his death. Years later, Peter has given up climbing and become a respected nature photographer, while Annie, who holds Peter responsible for her father's death, is a famous world-class mountain climber who is hired by Elliot Vaughn (Bill Paxton), a self-made billionaire, to help him scale K2, a mountain in the Himalayas that's the second-highest peak in the world. In the midst of the climb, dangerous weather strikes, and Elliot, Annie, and their crew find themselves trapped in a cavern that's been sealed tight by an avalanche. Peter, who is near K2 working on an assignment, quickly organizes a crew of expert climbers to save Annie and the other mountaineers, who must work under a tight deadline before the trapped climbers run out of air. Peter's partners in the rescue include beautiful medic Monique (Izabella Scorupco), radical climbers Cyril (Steve Le Marquand) and Malcolm (Ben Mendelsohn), disciplined Pakistani crewman Kareem (Alexander Siddig), and Montgomery (Scott Glenn), an eccentric outdoorsman who has a score to settle with Elliot. While backgrounds were shot on location in Pakistan, most of the climbing sequences in Vertical Limit were actually filmed on mountain ranges in New Zealand. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Geena Davis stars in this adventure saga as the most swashbuckling female pirate to ever lay waste to the seven seas. Morgan Adams (Davis) is the daughter of a pirate who has followed in her father's footsteps. When he dies, he passes along his ship, a crew of bandits, and one third of a treasure map (which happens to be tattooed on his skull). Morgan is eager to search out the rest of the map and retrieve the riches, but the fragment she holds is in Latin. Morgan then buys a well-educated slave, William Shaw (Matthew Modine), who can read the ancient language and already has a taste for the criminal life. However, Morgan and William are not long into their search when they discover that someone else is following the same trail for the rest of the treasure map: Dawg Brown (Frank Langella), Morgan's uncle and as black-hearted a scurvy dog as ever boarded a ship. As Morgan and Dawg battle each other over the fragments of the map, a British journalist (Maury Chaykin) covers their feud for the penny press. William Shaw was originally to have been played by Michael Douglas, who dropped out in the early stages of this troubled production. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Dana Carvey plays a private detective who forgets everything when he goes to sleep at night, waking up each morning with a "clean slate," in this hit-and-miss comedy that plays like a companion piece to the much funnier Groundhog Day. Pogue (Carvey) is afflicted with his unique form of amnesia after getting injured in a car explosion. With the aid of a mysterious woman (Valeria Golino) who allegedly died in the bombing, he must find a priceless coin and evade the murderous clutches of the mobster (Michael Gambon) who executed the explosion and who wants to silence Pogue before he can testify against him. Carvey fares reasonably well in his role, but the best moments are provided by Pogue's dog, a one-eyed Jack Russell named Barkley who makes a habit out of running into things headfirst. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide