Sean Ryerson Movies

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, Rovi

In this action comedy, a crook trying to go straight finds himself lured back to crime by the police, without his even knowing it. When master criminals Jasper (Robert Pastorelli) and Bristol (Doug Hutchison) pull a heist that nets $40 million in gold but leaves behind several dead policemen, detective Edgar Clenteen (David Morse) pulls out all the stops to put the thief behind bars. Jasper is jailed and ends up sharing a cell with Alvin Sanders (Jamie Foxx), a habitual small-time criminal who was brought in after a bungled robbery of a seafood wholesaler. Jasper, who has a weak heart, suffers a heart attack in jail, and as he dies, he gives Alvin a message to pass along to his wife. Eager to track down Bristol, who still has the gold, Clenteen has Alvin secretly implanted with an experimental tracking device, and then lets him go free, while spreading the word on the street that Jasper told him where the gold was stashed shortly before his death. While Alvin makes an effort to start his life over and get a straight job, Clenteen and his staff are electronically following his every move, waiting for Bristol and his associates to track him down. Bait was directed by Antoine Fuqua, whose previous credit was the stylish crime thriller The Replacement Killers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A wicked satire on mass media, this made-for-TV movie depicts the war initiated between two media moguls intent on buying the same football team. They are able to dig enough skeletons from each other's closets and are determined to continue despite the huge number of victims on both sides. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

In a role originally intended for Meg Ryan, Patricia Arquette plays Dr. Laura Bowman in director John Boorman's film of an American abroad in a strange country. It's 1988 and Laura is desperate to flee the United States and the memory of her husband and son's murders. Accompanied by her sister, Andy (Frances McDormand), she heads for Burma just as the peaceful protests against the country's military government take a more violent turn. Andy and the rest of their party flee in a hurry, but Laura is forced to stay behind when she loses her passport. A former professor (Aung Ko) offers her guidance to the border of Thailand, where they both hope to make their escape. Boorman's scenes of action and violence are well-staged, but Arquette is not big enough to carry the film and her plight seems inconsequential next to that of the Burmese as the military begins its ruthless crackdown. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

These two middle-aged geezers take a shot at professional ski racing in between romantic overtures to a pretty female sports writer. ~ Rovi