Pete Antico Movies

The real-life story of Teddy Roosevelt's role in the Spanish-American war is re-told in this made-for-television movie. Tom Berenger stars as Roosevelt, who in 1898 formed his own volunteer calvary to go into Cuba and fight the expansion of Spanish rule. Thousands of men from all walks of life volunteered, but Roosevelt honed the team down to over 500 fighting men. When they finally arrived in Cuba, they faced a well-equipped Spanish army and squared off in the famous Battle of San Juan Hill. Berenger is strong as the charismatic leader, and the supporting cast shines with familiar names. The film clocks in at four hours and was originally shown in two parts. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

Class of 1999, Part 2: The Substitute was (surprise!) a sequel to 1989's Class of 1999--which was itself a sequel of 1982's Class of 1984. Once again, the setting is an embattled high school, where no mere mortal teacher dare walk the corridors. To keep the homicidally-inclined student body in line, a fleet of android teachers are put on the faculty. The robots went ballistic in Class of 1999, inspiring their students to new heights of mayhem. In the sequel, rogue android Sasha Michael, though trained to kill, attempts to try less drastic means to get through to the students. Michael is shadowed by a sinister stranger, who will not be satisfied unless the android does what he (it?) is ordered to do. Like its predecessor, Class of 1999, Part 2: The Substitute is a very hard "R." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

U.S. military experts engage in a paranormal battle for survival while attempting to rescue a fellow soldier who was left behind in Afghanistan. When Pepper (Steve Bacic) left a man behind in Afghanistan, he didn't realize that decision would linger with him for the rest of his days. Now, Pepper has a chance to make good on that decision by venturing behind enemy lines to save his captured comrade. In order to esure that their mission is a success, Pepper organizes a rescue squad comprised of the best soldiers in the military. But even the most seasoned combat soldiers are no mach for the evil that awaits them in the formidable Afghan mountains. Michael Madsen, Gary Stretch, and Chris Kramer co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Love, death, and troubling secrets lurk beneath the surface of a quiet Iowa farming community in this independent drama. Ellen Biddle (Melora Walters) is a Iowa housewife who has reached the breaking point -- a drought is devastating the family farm, creditors threaten to foreclose on the property, and Ellen learns her husband, Paul (Tahmus Rounds), has been sleeping with Patsy (Jo Anderson), the unsatisfied wife of the town sheriff, Tom Gibson (Jamey Sheridan). One night, Paul comes home late from spending the evening with Patsy, and Ellen murders him with a shotgun. After cleaning up the scene of the crime and disposing of Paul's body, Ellen tries to go on with her life, but Tom -- with whom Ellen had a fling many years before -- begins poking around, seemingly interested in starting up with her again, though Ellen's mother (Diane Ladd) warns her daughter to keep her distance. Meanwhile, Tom is also running for mayor, but the behavior of his loose-cannon son, Richard (Kris Park), is quickly becoming a liability, while Richard finds an unlikely ally in his private war against his father in Ellen. Katherine Lindberg's debut feature was one of two films called Rain which was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Three generations of method acting giants unite for this crime thriller written by Kario Salem and directed by Frank Oz. Robert De Niro stars as Nick Wells, an aging thief whose specialty is safecracking and who is on the verge of retiring to a life of ease, running his jazz club and romancing his girlfriend Diane (Angela Bassett). But before he can ride off into the sunset, Nick is pressured to do one last job by his mentor and business partner, a flamboyant and extravagant upscale fence named Max (Marlon Brando). Max is plotting the heist of the Montreal Customs House, and he's got a man on the inside, Jackie Teller (Edward Norton), a talented but volatile crook who has managed to ingratiate himself with the facility's staff as a fellow employee suffering from cerebral palsy. Jackie bristles at Nick's interference in "his" score, however, and threatens violence when it seems he's going to be cut out of the action. In the meantime, Nick grows increasingly ill at ease about the operation, as it violates his two most important dictums in thievery: always work alone and never pull a job in your own city. The part of Max in The Score was written specifically for Brando by screenwriter Salem, although the improvisational star and his director Oz reportedly clashed during filming. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Three stars team up for this unusual look at America's role in the war against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering about the ultimate importance of what they've done (especially since Saddam Hussein is still in power). Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home; and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit. So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where Saddam's forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait, they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of the consequences of America's policies in the Middle East. Although President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people's movement against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what's happening, they're torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Vincent (Danny Aiello), aging, war-weary hit man for the Mob, becomes the target of Tommy (William Forsythe), the hot-headed son of the new family boss. While Vincent considers his options (retirement, of course, is not one of them) and reflects on his violent life, Tommy tries to find the wherewithal to slay the man he considers a lifelong father figure. Still, a contract's a contract. Can religion, loyalty, or money save Vincent from his apparent fate?
~ Buzz McClain, Rovi

Actor-comedian-talk show host Keenen Ivory Wayans stars in his own action thriller screenplay about a war hero who becomes the fall guy in a frame-up. During the Persian Gulf War, U.S. Marine Sgt. James Dunn (Wayans) refuses to shoot a young shepherd, struggles with a superior officer, and winds up with a murder conviction. Sentenced to death in a military prison, Dunn is rescued from a prisoner-transport bus and selected for a special covert "Black Sheep" unit commanded by Lt. Col. Grant Casey (Jon Voight). Casey offers Dunn freedom if he will aid their battle against corrupt industrialist Donald Bickhart (Robert Culp). During the dedication of a Los Angeles medical research building, the First Lady is assassinated, and Dunn discovers that he has been set up as the trigger-man. Caught in a conspiracy, Dunn relies on his own survival skills and expert military training to elude those in pursuit, including corrupt Army superiors plus police and government agents. To clear his name and expose the real killers, Dunn kidnaps Dr. Victoria Constantini (Jill Hennessy), an eyewitness who made a videotape of the assassination. Now he has the evidence he needs and an uncooperative hostage, but after a $10 million bounty is announced, his situation gets even more desperate as he finds himself chased through the streets of Los Angeles by an immense money-hungry crowd hoping to collect the reward. The freeway filming of this chase featured an unprecedented stunt -- 16 stunt people simultaneously hit by 20 cars. Another stunt required a leap from a 45-story building. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

In this action thriller, a group of Islamic terrorists, led by Nagi Hassan (David Suchet), highjacks a 747 jetliner with 400 passengers aboard, but Lt. Col. Austin Travis (Steven Seagal), a United States intelligence agent, is convinced that this isn't an ordinary case of air piracy. His suspicions are soon confirmed; Hassan's men have obtained a large cache of stolen Soviet nerve gas, and they are using the 747 to smuggle the deadly gas into the United States, where they intend to use it to wipe out Washington D.C. and possibly the entire East Coast. As the jet approaches the U. S., engineer Dennis Cahill (Oliver Platt) designs a plan in which a military plane will be able to transfer U.S. soldiers onto the 747 and regain control of the plane and its deadly cargo. However, when Travis dies in the course of the mission, intelligence agent Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell) is forced to take his place alongside explosives expert Cappy (Joe Morton), commando Rat (John Leguizamo), and stewardess-turned-anti-terrorist Jean (Halle Berry). Executive Decision was the first directorial assignment for veteran film editor Stuart Baird; he cut the film as well. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The sophomore film from former music video and commercial director Michael Bay, this fast-paced action yarn featured rapid-fire editing, a cutting-edge rock soundtrack and liberal use of shots awash in a haze of burnished hues, all trademarks of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Nicolas Cage stars as Stanley Goodspeed, an FBI chemical weapons expert handed a unique assignment. Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris), an insane Marine Corps general, has taken 81 tourists hostage on the abandoned island prison of Alcatraz. He and his men are threatening to bomb San Francisco with deadly gas unless $100 million is paid in war reparations to the families of servicemen killed in covert operations. Goodspeed is teamed with former British spy John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery), the only man ever to escape "The Rock," as well as a Navy SEAL team. When their military escorts are ambushed, it's up to odd couple Goodspeed and Mason to break into Alcatraz and stop Hummel. The Rock was the last film produced by Simpson, who died of a drug overdose before the film's release. Solo, his partner Bruckheimer continued making the sort of glossy, frenetic films for which the duo was famed. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

An ex-cop trying to stay away from trouble finds it literally crashing into his backyard in this crime thriller. Dave Robicheaux (Alec Baldwin) is a former New Orleans police detective who, after kicking an addiction to alcohol and confronting some serious problems with his partners, has left law enforcement behind to run a bait shop in a small Louisiana bayou town. One day, Dave and his wife Annie (Kelly Lynch) see a small plane plummet from the sky and crash into the swamp; the pilot dies, but Dave is able to rescue a young Hispanic girl from the wreckage. Dave and Annie take the child in, but as they try to find out more about the plane crash and who the little girl might be, they discover that she's actually an illegal alien from Salvador and that the pilot was involved with a local drug ring. Dave, constitutionally unable to let a mystery go unsolved, begins asking enough questions and making enough trouble that he finds himself on the bad side of his old High School friend Bubba Rocque (Eric Roberts). Bubba is a local crime boss who controls the area's drug traffic, keeps a boxing ring in his front yard, and has a wife Claudette (Teri Hatcher) who enjoys greeting her guests naked. Dave's inquiries eventually become too much for Bubba and his henchmen, and in the midst of a violent raid on their home, Annie is killed. Dave becomes obsessed with bringing Bubba and his men to justice and gets some unexpected help from Robin Gaddis (Mary Stuart Masterson), an exotic dancer with a heart of gold. While it was originally scheduled for release in 1994, Heaven's Prisoners didn't arrive on theater screens until two years later, by which time Teri Hatcher had risen to stardom on the TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Two leaders with different philosophies about battle and leadership wage war with each other in this tense military thriller. Capt. Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman) is the commanding officer of a nuclear submarine, the U.S.S. Alabama. Ramsey is a distinguished veteran near the end of his career, and he leads his men with an iron hand; as he puts it, "We're here to preserve democracy, not to practice it." Ramsey is assigned a new second-in-command, Lt. Cmmdr. Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington); Hunter is much younger than Ramsey, Harvard educated, and believes the goal of the military in the nuclear age is to prevent war, not fight it. While at sea, word reaches the Alabama that a splinter group of Russian forces have seized missile silos, and the ship is put on red alert. The Alabama has orders to fire, but as it is receiving a new incoming order the radio malfunctions. It's Ramsey's contention that an order is an order and they are to move forward with the attack, while Hunter feels if there is any question at all about their mission, they should wait until they can receive further instruction, with Hunter going so far as to threaten mutiny against Ramsey if the missile strike is carried out. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Towne both contributed to the screenplay without credit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi