Will Patton Movies

Private investigator Tom O'Toole (Nick Nolte) is reluctant to take on a case offered to him by cryptically offbeat Angela Crispini (Debra Winger), but he lets himself be seduced by her. Angela believes that Felix Daniels (Frank Military) was wrongly convicted of murdering his uncle. As O'Toole learns more about the crime, he becomes convinced that Felix was framed by corrupt local officials, including States Attorney, and old rival, Charlie Haggerty (Frank Converse). O'Toole also falls in love with Angela, who increasingly appears to be a psychologically disturbed woman who may have been involved with several of the principals. When Angela admits that she doesn't always know when she is telling the truth, she speaks to O'Toole's predicament and the film's theme: the dangers of relying on an unreliable narrator. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

Co-produced by the folks from PBS' American Playhouse series, Signs of Life (alternate title: One For Sorrow, Two For Joy) stars veteran actor Arthur Kennedy as a cranky, set-in-his-ways Maine shipbuilder. Unable to keep apace with the 1980s, Kennedy is forced to close up shop. The film probes the various effects this decision has on Kennedy's employees. Beau Bridges has a wife (Kathy Bates) and four kids to support, with a fifth on the way. Kevin J. O'Connor would like to take a salvage-diving job in another state, but must first break off his long-standing relationship with waitress Mary Louise Parker. And Vincent D'Onofrio, who'd managed to find a job for his retarded brother Michael Lewis at Kennedy's establishment, is forced to consider having Lewis institutionalized. Though screenwriter Mark Malone isn't completely successful in avoiding the Obvious, there is much to cherish in Signs of Life. The film represented Arthur Kennedy's return before the cameras after ten years' retirement; after one additional performance in the independently produced Grandpa, Kennedy died in 1990 at the age of 76. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If it is possible for a film to be "in heat", then Zalman King's Wildfire is that film. Teenagers Steven Bauer and Linda Fiorentino have their wedding plans shelved indefinitely when Bauer is imprisoned for bank robbery. Upon his release, Bauer learns that Linda is a wife and mother, with no intention of reverting to her previous lifestyle. All this changes when Bauer breaks parole and goes on a crime spree. Turned on by danger, Linda becomes Bonnie to Bauer's Clyde. Maurice Jarre's orgasmic musical score enhances the steamy eroticism of this typical Zalman King wet dream. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No Way Out is told in flashback as Naval officer Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) is grilled by his superiors regarding a recent "unpleasantness." While at a Washington party, Tom meets Susan Atwel (Sean Young), and they're soon sharing a steamy love scene in the back of a limo (marvelously parodied in 1993's Hot Shots! Part Deux). Several months pass before Tom meets Susan again; he discovers she's the mistress of the US Secretary of Defense David Brice (Gene Hackman). When Susan is murdered by Brice, his loyal aide (Will Patton) dutifully destroys the evidence and invents the fallacious theory that a KGB mole was responsible. Tom is assigned to locate that mole -- a perilous situation, since Tom knows that no such mole exists, but must go along with the charade since he was the last person who was seen with Susan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's After Hours is a dark, tragi-comic tale of a fish out of water, centering on an uptight, white-bread computer consultant from uptown Manhattan who finds himself in the nightmarish and incomprehensible (to him) world of Soho after dark. The ordeal begins when Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) gets lonely and decides to leave the posh East Side and search the Soho streets for some loving from Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), the pretty young woman he met in a downtown cafe. He has her phone number and works up the nerve to call. She wants to see him, and so Paul grabs $20, hails a taxi and sets out. The weirdness begins when he loses his money during the high-speed cab ride. His visit to Marcy's loft, where he meets her crazed artist roommate Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), is a disaster, as is his encounter with the beehive-wearing retro waitress Julie (Teri Garr). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Per its title, Chinese Boxes plays the riddle-wrapped-in-a-mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma angle to the hilt. Will Patton plays an innocent American who finds himself in the middle of international intrigue. With West Berlin as backdrop, the story takes so many twists and turns that one may well need a book of directions by fadeout time. Robbie Coltraine and Gottfried John are among the supporting actors who are not what they seem and never say what they mean. Chinese Boxes was a fairly smooth German/British collaboration, with little indication of any on-set communication breakdowns (surely somebody understood what was going on). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A couple's relationship unravels and comes apart at the seams, leaving no room for psychological mending of any kind in this unremittingly negative film about King Blank (Ron Vawter) and Queenie Blank (Rosemary Hochschild). If viewers were meant to fill in the Blanks, they would be hard-put to find anyone as crass, vulgar, and crude as these two fighting pseudo-lovers. While closeted in their New York hotel room to battle out their differences, there is not much hope for a quick resolution to the couple's maladjustments, and while at the bar for some intermission in their endless rounds, the duking duo run into a succession of alcoholics, psychotics, prostitutes, and other fringe elements who are worse off than they are. Based on the language and behavior of the destructive protagonists, this black-and-white film is not likely to find a large following. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Karen's ribald private life with her lover (Kurt Russell) and her loose-living friends (Cher and Diana Scarwid). This is in contrast to her humdrum job at Kerr-McGee--or it least it was humdrum until Karen and several other employees become contaminated by radiation. The higher-ups want to sweep this incident under the rug, but Karen thinks that something's fishy, and informs the union of that fact. X-rays of the faulty fuel rods and written proof of the inadequate safety measures that caused Karen's illness are tampered with, forcing Karen to conduct her own private investigation. As she gathers evidence, Karen becomes a pariah to her boyfriend because of her obsession. She finally organizes the evidence into a briefcase, and heads off to her meeting with the Times reporter. She never makes it; the "official" report on her fatal auto accident is that Ms. Silkwood had been drinking and was under the influence of tranquilizers. Kerr-McGee was eventually forced to pay the Silkwood family an enormous settlement because of her contamination, but the full facts behind her convenient accident have never been revealed (though the filmmakers clearly indictate whom they hold responsible). Director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen surround this true story with a lively, improvisational atmosphere that gets the best out of Streep, Russell, and Cher, while providing perhaps the fullest on-screen realization of Nichols' theater-based techniques of realistic, character-centered, dialogue-driven filmmaking, as well as one of the first movie screenplays from future director Ephron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide