Al Israel Movies
- 1982
- R
Soviets steal a cache of plutonium leaving one rogue super CIA agent to steal it back and save the world. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ken Wahl, Klaus Kinski, (more)
Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, an exiled Cuban criminal who goes to work for Miami drug lord Robert Loggia. Montana rises to the top of Florida's crime chain, appropriating Loggia's cokehead mistress (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the process. Howard Hawks' "X Marks the Spot" motif in depicting the story line's many murders is dispensed with in the 1983 Scarface; instead, we are inundated with blood by the bucketful, especially in the now-infamous buzz saw scene. One carry-over from the original Scarface is Tony Montana's incestuous yearnings for his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). The screenplay for the 1983 Scarface was written by Oliver Stone. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, (more)
Director and writer Marissa Silver debuted with this captivating film on the friendship of two young girls from opposite sides of the economic tracks but same side of town. Twelve-year-old Lonnie Sloan (Sarah Boyd) is a well-to-do New York rich kid and Karen Bruckner (Rainbow Harvest) is the more ordinary, impoverished New York kid. They happen to meet one day on the street in their neighborhood and hit it off just because each is fascinated with unknown quantities. As they learn that they were taught to perceive and react to the world differently, their relationship becomes one of unfolding adventure -- even for the grown-up viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sarah Boyd, Rainbow Harvest, (more)
In Body Double, director Brian DePalma pays homage to the Alfred Hitchcock movies Vertigo and Rear Window, adding a few grotesque touches all his own. Craig Wasson plays Jake, a struggling actor who keeps losing jobs because of his claustrophobia. To make matters worse, he discovers his girlfriend cheating on him, so he has no place to sleep. His pal offers him the use of his apartment for the evening. The apartment happens to be equipped with a huge picture window and telescope, enabling him to spy on his beautiful neighbor Gloria (Deborah Shelton) while she undresses. He soon realizes that the woman is in grave danger, and begins to track her every move, with the hope of coming to her aid. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, (more)
- 1985
In this drama, an angry, bereaved husband decides to get his own kind of justice after the man who killed his wife and son is freed on a legal technicality. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1986
Hunter (Fred Dryer) is a witness to murder when his former partner, DEA agent Neil Jordan (John Beck), is gunned down before his eyes. But after attempting to chase down the killer, Hunter returns to the crime scene find that Jordan's body has disappeared. At this point the detective is plunged into a maelstrom of intrigue and deception involving the Feds, the Mafia, and even Fidel Castro--and as the cream of the jest, it turns out that Jordan may not really be dead after all! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
In Marked for Death, Steven Seagal is told to "try to find the gentle person inside yourself." But he doesn't spend too much time looking, preferring instead to crack the spines of his victims. Seagal plays John Hatcher, a burned-out narcotics agent who resigns from the Drug Enforcement Administration after his partner is killed. He returns to his hometown and finds the city in the thrall of a vicious Jamaican drug gang, led by the nasty Screwface (Basil Wallace). He meets an old friend, now a high school football coach, who tells John about losing his best player and his 13-year-old nephew to drug overdoses. Soon John's family is threatened and his prize Mustang stolen, so John joins forces with his buddy to take on Screwface and the drug gang themselves. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Steven Seagal, Basil Wallace, (more)
- 1991
With Marilyn Monroe permanently unavailable for comment, everybody and his uncle has come out of the woodwork since 1962 claiming an intimate relationship with the legendary film star (how did she ever find the time to be a film star?) Marilyn and Me is based on the reminiscences of one Robert Slatzer, who claimed to have been secretly married to Monroe back in her Norma Jean days. Jesse Dobson manages to keep a straight face as he recites his lines as Slatzer, while Susan Griffiths is as good a Monroe impersonator as any. Better still is Joel Grey as Marilyn's first and most influential agent Johnny Hyde, whose own close relationship with La Monroe is a bit easier to believe. Actress Terry Moore, who in the early 1950s was briefly groomed as a Monroe "substitute," plays a bit as Johnny Hyde's widow. Marilyn and Me is about as convincing as the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, and not nearly as entertaining. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Carlito's Way is a tale of a former hood trying to escape his former life. Al Pacino is Carlito Brigante, a high-level Puerto Rican drug dealer sprung from a three-decade jail sentence after only five years, thanks to a technicality and his sleazy, cocaine-addled lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Carlito renounces his previous ways and takes a job as the manager of a club that Kleinfeld has invested in, planning to save enough money so that he can eventually move to the Caribbean. But no sooner is Carlito back on the streets of New York than his old life claws at him in the form of both old partners (Luis Guzman) and vicious up-and-comers (John Leguizamo). Nevertheless, Carlito stays clean and even restarts his relationship with a dancer named Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), until he is finally led astray by Kleinfeld, who manipulates Carlito into participating in the murder of a Mafia don from whom Kleinfeld has stolen a million dollars. At that point, the race is on to see whether Carlito and Gail can escape his world for good. The film is based on two novels about Carlito written by New York State judge Edwin Torres. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
Wesley Snipes is battling bad guys in the air again, this time with parachutes, in this action-packed suspense thriller. Pete Nessip (Snipes) is a Federal Marshall who, teamed with his brother Terry (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), is escorting criminal computer genius Earl Leedy (Michael Jeter) to a new prison facility. Pete, Terry, and Earl are on a jet en route to Earl's new lockup when terrorists attempt a daring hijacking; Terry is killed in an explosion aboard the plane, and suddenly Earl is missing. Pete discovers that a team of sky-diving outlaws, led by former DEA agent gone bad Ty Moncrief (Gary Busey), have snatched Earl from his flight and spirited him away for a special raid on Washington D.C.; Ty and his men intend to take advantage of an obscure rule in which the normally restricted airspace in Washington D.C. is open to parachute enthusiasts on July 4. Eager to avenge his brother's death and put both Ty and Earl behind bars, Pete recruits sky-diving expert Jessie Crossman (Yancy Butler) to teach him how to infiltrate Ty's team of sky-bound criminals. Superb aerial stunt work highlights this film; please note that Pete's last name is an anagram for the leading man's last name. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Gary Busey, (more)
In this drama, a school teacher discovers that it takes more than the ABCs to get through to a class of "uneducatable" kids. When Lou Anne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer), a nine-year veteran of the Marine Corps with a degree in education, begins a new job at an inner-city school in California, the principal (George Dzundza) warns her that her class will be the "rejects from Hell" -- kids with severe social problems and no interest in education. While at first her African-American and Latino students scoff at Lou Anne, she ultimately gets them to open up to learning and literature, through a combination of bribery (candy bars) and intimidation (her karate training from the Marines comes in handy), and she's able to reach out to the students who need her the most: Callie (Bruklin Harris), a bright girl who believes she's thrown away her future when she becomes pregnant; Emilio (Wade Dominquez), a macho bully whose violence is stifling his academic potential; and Raul (Renoly Santiago), the brightest kid in the class, who is afraid to show his intelligence. Dangerous Minds was adapted from a memoir by Lou Anne Johnson entitled My Posse Don't Do Homework. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michelle Pfeiffer, George Dzundza, (more)
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