Brett Ratner Movies

Axel Foley is back on the beat in this belated entry in the popular Beverly Hills Cop film series that finds Eddie Murphy revisiting the character that helped launch him to international stardom in the mid-'80s. The fourth installment is set to be helmed by Rush Hour director Brett Ratner, whose experience with successful action comedies landed him the job. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Director Brett Ratner teams with screenwriters Richard Potter and Matthew Stravitz for a second screen adaptation of Ira Levin's paranoid novel concerning a South American Nazi plot to revive the Third Reich. Originally filmed in 1978 with actors Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck in the leads, Levin's novel is slightly altered for this version in which the action plays out in the present day. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Veteran Saw franchise helmer Darren Lynn Bousman continues his foray into the macabre with this remake of the 1989 Troma B-film classic Mother's Day. The revamp will still center on a demented mother (Rebecca De Mornay) and her two sons, but will focus on them terrorizing a couple that is residing in their old home rather than the original's theme of a group of hikers being tortured in the woods. Jaime King, Shawn Ashmore, Briana Evigan, and Deborah Ann Woll topline the cast. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Playboy depicts the life of Hugh Hefner, the controversial mastermind of the title publication, who came from a religious background to become one of the most recognizable figures in the sexual revolution. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Director Robert Luketic adapts Ben Mezrich's best-seller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions to tell the true-life tale of six genius students who used their brains to beat considerable odds. Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) may be shy, but his wallflower reputation betrays his inner brilliance. As smart as Ben may be, however, if he can't pay his tuition he'll be kicked out of M.I.T. Fortunately, the answer to all of Ben's problems is right there in the cards. Recruited to join a team of extremely gifted students who have used their mastery of numbers to beat the odds at blackjack, Ben procures a fake identity in order to join the casino scammers and their brilliant leader -- eccentric math professor and stats genius Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) -- in some highly profitable weekend excursions to Las Vegas. Counting cards isn't illegal, and by using a complex series of signals, this team has cracked the code. Of course, it doesn't take long for Ben to become seduced by the glamorous Las Vegas lifestyle, and the attention afforded to him by his sexy teammate Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) finds him pushing his luck to the absolute limits. Laurence Fishburne stars as Cole Williams, the Sin City security chief who catches on to the group and makes it his mission to expose their lucrative blackjack scam. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Based on a series of popular mystery novels by James Patterson, the ABC crime show Women's Murder Club received an abudance of pre-release publicity not so much because of its source material, but because it represented the long-overdue return to television of former Law&Order regular Angie Harmon. The actress was cast as San Francisco police homicide detective Lindsay Boxer, a woman whose near-obsessive dedication to her job had caused the breakup of her marriage to Lt. Tom Hogan (Rob Estes), who thanks to the machinations of the scriptwriters was now her boss at the department. Joining forces with three other women in the crimefighting profession, Lindsay specialized in solving allegedly unsolvable murder cases. Her collaborators included medical examiner Claire Washburn (Paula Newsome), who despite her "workaholic" habits was able to approach her job objectively, and to devote ample time to her wheelchair-bound husband Ed (Jonathan Adams) and her sons Derek (Neilan Benvegnu) and Nate (Drew Matthews); assistant DA Jill Bernhardt (Laura Harris), whose mystery-solving activities occasionally took a back seat to her romantic entanglements with defense attorney Hanson North (Kyle Secor) and doctor Luke Bowen (Coby McLaughlin); and newspaper reporter Cindy Thomas (Aubrey Dollar), who was tolerated by her colleagues--albeit just barely--because she possessed a photographic memory (It was Cindy who insisted upon referring to the foursome as the "Women's Murder Club", much to the discomfort of the other three. Other regular characters included Lindsay's steadfast police partner Warren Jacobi (Tyrees Allen), Jill's no-nonsense superior, Deputy DA Linda Park (Denise Kwon), and Tom Hogan's new bride Heather Donnelly (Ever Carradine), a kindergarten teacher. Combining CSI-style procedural drama with Grey's Anatomy-style soap opera, Women's Murder Club" debuted October 12, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man who has lost his memory has a new and dangerous life thrust upon him in this comedy thriller. Jake (Cedric the Entertainer) is a janitor who finds himself stricken with a crippling case of amnesia. While Jake struggles to regain his memory and identity, he becomes convinced that he's an undercover spy who is trying to ferret out a ring of underground arms dealers wanted by the FBI and the CIA. As Jake is thrown into the world of international intrigue, he gains an unlikely ally in Gina (Lucy Liu), an actual U.S. intelligence agent who is tracking the same bad guys and develops a liking for the janitor. The Cleaner also stars Nicollette Sheridan, DeRay Davis, and Callum Keith Rennie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Oscar-winning Hollywood visionary Steven Spielberg teams with reality television pioneer Mark Burnett for an unscripted series in which undiscovered filmmakers compete for the opportunity to win a development deal at DreamWorks -- the production company behind such major box-office hits as Dreamgirls and War of the Worlds. Each week the contestants are provided with the best resources that the film industry has to offer, provided with a limited budget, and given the assignment of completing various types of film projects. After completion, each film is screened in a one-hour episode and critiqued by three judges: director Garry Marshall, actress and screenwriter Carrie Fisher, and a special guest judge, such as Brett Ratner, Michael Bay, and D.J. Caruso. Though the professional critiques allow the contestants an opportunity to gain a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses as filmmakers, the final outcome of the competition rests in the hands of the viewing audience -- who are given the opportunity to vote for their favorite film each week. The results of the vote are announced during the next week's episode, and the filmmaker(s) behind the feature with the fewest votes are sent home. In the end, the one director left standing is granted a one-million-dollar development deal at DreamWorks, which could allow the filmmaker the opportunity to realize his or her dream of becoming a major Hollywood director. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An 18-year old rock & roll fan finds her crafty scheme to have a little fun in the sun with her favorite musician thwarted in this romantic teen comedy starring Amanda Bynes and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Jenny (Bynes) is a wide-eyed teen who has recently been hired to work at a popular tropical resort for the summer. When Jenny learns that handsome rock star Jason (Chris Carmack) will be a guest at the posh resort, her excitement is simply too powerful to contain. Fortunately for Jenny, fate is on her side this summer, and when Jason falls overboard from his cruise ship Jenny reflexively dives in to save him. Upon rafting to the safety of a nearby shore, Jenny convinces the hunky rocker that the pair are castaways on a deserted island paradise. Of course, considering that the luxury resort is just a stone's throw away, this minor deception is a bit of a stretch, but what's a little white lie when the object of her affections is none the wiser? Jenny's brilliant plan for romance is soon complicated, however, when her romantic rival, Alexis (Sigler), washes ashore pretending to be shipwrecked as well. Now, as the pair competes for Jason's affections, Jenny's deception rapidly begins to unravel. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock re-teams with that film's producers Heather Winters and Joe Morley to produce Sara Sackner's documentary concerning the arts education crisis in America. As arts programs continue to disappear at an unprecedented rate across the country, Sackner examines the role that teachers play in ensuring that creativity and education alive and well in the public school curriculum. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Undoubtedly pitched to network executives as "24 Behind Bars," the weekly, hour-long continuing drama Prison Break starred Wentworth Miller as structural engineer Michael Scofield, who when first seen by the audience was somewhat inexplicably in the process of committing a bank robbery -- and then allowing himself to be arrested and convicted. Scofield was sentenced to five years at Fox River Penitentiary, where, by a stunning coincidence, his brother Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) was spending his last month on Death Row, awaiting execution for the murder of the brother of the U.S. vice president. Convinced that Lincoln was innocent and the victim of a government conspiracy, Scofield had purposely gotten himself incarcerated at Fox River for the express purpose of helping his brother escape -- a task made slightly less formidable by the fact that Scofield had helped design the prison! Our hero's meticulously worked out scheme depended upon the cooperation of several co-conspirators, among them Scofield's likable cellmate Sucre (Amaury Nolasco); well-connected mobster (and fellow prisoner) Abruzzi (Peter Stormare); Charles Westmoreland (Muse Watson), who may or may have not really been the legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper; and sympathetic prison doctor Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), whose dad was the governor of Illinois. Meanwhile, Lincoln's former girlfriend, lawyer Veronica Donovan (Robin Tunney), burned the midnight oil to figure out who would want to frame Lincoln and why; and Lincoln's 15-year-old son LJ (Marshall Allman) desperately tried to make sense of the fact that both his dad and his favorite uncle were now beyond his reach (temporarily, anyway). Others in the cast included Stacey Keach as Warden Pope, Robert Knepper as fearsome white-supremacist convict T-Bag, and Wade Williams as highly suspicious senior correctional officer Bellick. Merrily playing fast and loose with such intangibles as logic and common sense, Prison Break was given a major publicity blitz before its Fox network debut on August 29, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki offers a celluloid portrait of a cinematic mastermind at work in this documentary shot over an eight month period and following director James Toback through each phase of production of his 2004 thriller When Will I be Loved. From pre-production to final cut, Jarecki follows the existential-minded director through the entire process of making a movie as Toback opens up to the camera to discuss a variety of deeply personal matters and explore just how they have manifested themselves in such films as Love and Money, The Big Bang, and Black and White. Candid interviews with such well-known Toback collaborators as Woody Allen, Robert Towne, Harvey Keitel, Roger Ebert, Brett Ratner, show just how much impact the well-respected filmmaker has had in Hollywood despite his stubborn refusal to fit into the commercialized mold so frequently associated with the showbiz mecca. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide