Chris Penn

A two-bit criminal gets a shot at redemption while traveling through Southeast Asia in this 2006 drama from director Guy Moshe. Ron Livingston stars Patrick, a low-level con man who scores a gig transporting some stolen goods from Cambodia. When Patrick is sidelined at a brothel, he finds himself drawn to helping the title character, a 12-year-old Vietnamese prostitute played by Thuy Nguyen. Featuring one of the final performances by actor Chris Penn, Holly screened at the 2006 Edinburgh Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Palindromes opens with the dedication, "In loving memory of Dawn Wiener," a reference to the lead character in writer/director Todd Solondz' early feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Aviva has just attended Dawn's funeral. Dismayed by her older cousin's untimely death, Aviva asks her mother (Ellen Barkin) for assurance that she won't grow up to be like Dawn. Aviva only dreams of one thing -- having babies. Lots and lots of babies. As a teen, while Aviva has no interest in sex, she eagerly loses her virginity to Judah (Robert Agri), the son of a family friend in hopes of getting pregnant. She does, but her mother insists that she have an abortion. Worse yet, due to a complication during the procedure, the doctor is forced to perform a hysterectomy. Unaware of her medical condition, Aviva runs away from home and is picked up by a truck driver (Stephen Adly Guirgis) who has his way with her and then abandons her at a roadside motel. She wanders in the wilderness until she meets up with Jiminy (Tyler Maynard), a friendly boy who lives with the "Sunshine Family," a group of disabled kids cared for by the cheerful Mama Sunshine (Debra Monk). The kids are also a Christian singing group. Aviva is happy until she learns that Mama Sunshine and her husband are virulently anti-abortion and that they are planning to murder a doctor. Solondz cast eight different actors in the lead role, each of whom play Aviva at different points in the story. Matthew Faber reprises the role of Mark Wiener from Welcome to the Dollhouse. Palindromes was shot at Bard College in upstate New York, using many film students as crew. It was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center for inclusion in the 2004 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in the title roles, this kitschy tongue-in cheek action comedy is based on the popular 1970s cop show of the same name. Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Wilson) and Dave Starsky (Stiller) are a tough pair of plain-clothes cops who drive a red and white Ford Torino and solve cases with the assistance of their informant, Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg). While investigating their latest case, the duo realize that the culprit is none other than Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn), the criminal involved in their first bust. Starsky & Hutch also features appearance by Juliette Lewis, Will Ferrell, and Matt Walsh, who, along with Snoop Dogg and Vaughn, all had roles in director Todd Phillips' last film, Old School. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Enigmatic rock legend Bob Dylan stars as an enigmatic rock legend (talk about a casting coup!) in this purposefully eccentric satiric comedy. Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman) is an unscrupulous concert promoter who has figured out a way to cash in on the feelings of doubt and uncertainty that plague his nation, which is being torn apart by civil war and political revolution. Sweetheart has decided he will stage a massive benefit concert, though the unnamed charity would appear to be his checking account. Sweetheart hires television producer Nina Veronica (Jessica Lange) to help promote the show and sell it as a nation-wide cable-cast event, while Sweetheart pulls a few strings to arrange for the perfect headliner -- Jack Fate (Bob Dylan), a legendary songwriter who is currently serving a term in prison. With Fate out from behind bars, Sweetheart and Veronica set out to sell their grand spectacle to the world, though one determined investigative journalist (Jeff Bridges) has set out to throw a spenner into the works of Uncle Sweetheart and his epic fundraiser. Marking the directorial debut of comedy writer Larry Charles, Masked and Anonymous also features Penelope Cruz and Luke Wilson; the film was shown in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two buddies find themselves doing some very wrong things for perfectly right reasons in this broad comedy. John (Jason Lee) is a nice guy who is responsible and hardworking; his best friend Duff (Tom Green), however, is his polar opposite, a layabout who is constantly getting in some sort of trouble. John is very much in love with his longtime girlfriend Elaine (Leslie Mann), and wants to marry her, but true to form, he has pledged not to make the walk down the aisle until he has saved up to 30,000 dollars so they'll be able to afford a down payment on the house they've always wanted. After years of saving, John has finally put 30 grand in the bank, and has set the date with Elaine. However, as John's big day approaches, he gets word from his sister Patty (Megan Mullally) that her daughter Noreen (Tammy Blanchard) has been accepted into Harvard University -- and years ago, John promised her if she got into the prestigious college, he'd pay the tuition. Making good on John's pledge to his niece would leave him with a mere 121 dollars in the bank, but he doesn't have the heart to say no to Noreen, or tell Elaine of his dilemma. John does tell Duff about his problem, who comes up with a typically hare-brained solution -- turning to a life of crime for the next two weeks in order to steal another 30,000 dollars. Stealing Harvard costars Dennis Farina and Chris Penn; Bruce McCulloch, a member of the comedy series The Kids in the Hall, served as director. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When a fallen cop turns to a life of crime to support both himself and his young son, the choices he makes may lead to deadly consequences in this explosive action effort starring screen veterans Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Chris Penn, Cynthia Rothrock, and James Russo. John Sato (Wilson) has a reputation for being the toughest cop in L.A. The leader of an elite SWAT tactical force, Sato's effective but unorthodox tactics have found him isolated from his team and derided by his superiors. When fellow officer Erin Murphy (Rothrock) is killed in the line of duty, Captain Grill (Russo) pins the death on Sato and he is swiftly terminated by Internal Affairs. Left jobless and penniless and saddled with a son from his broken marriage, Sato turns to high-class call girl Tara (Carrie Stevens) in hopes of finding work on the street. Soon making the acquaintance of malevolent mob boss Tony Leggio (Penn), Sato is forced to choose between a bloody life of greed or the redemption that could earn the respect of his son and put him back on the track to righteousness. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Longtime Hollywood vice detectives Holt (Chris Penn) and Nin (Jeffrey Wright) have themselves become gangsters and drug users. When violence-prone Holt catches his girlfriend Lyndel (Sherilyn Fenn) with drug kingpin Truman Rickart's (Henry Czerny) number one henchman Sean (Anthony DeSando), Nin does everything he can to save the hood's life from his obsessed partner. But it might be a matter of too little too late: Holt already has Sean strung up in a pig-iron box that he's filling with cement. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

Brazilian director Bruno Barreto helmed this Jeremy Iacone screenplay "inspired by" New York detective Bo Dietl's 1988 autobiography, One Tough Cop: The Bo Dietl Story. However, the credits display this line: "Except for the character of Bo Dietl, all characters and situations portrayed in this film are fictional." During a routine drug bust, Bo Dietl (Stephen Baldwin) and his short-fused partner Duke (Chris Penn) encounter a hostage situation when Popi (Luis Guzman) kills his unfaithful wife. Bo gets Popi to release his young daughter, but the man kills himself. Bo's lifelong buddy Richie La Cassa (Mike McGlone), owner of the plush La Cassa club, didn't let marriage keep him away from attractive Joey O'Hara (Gina Gershon) -- an affair brought to a close by Joey. After she takes an interest in Bo, the atmosphere heats up considerably, causing a rift with Richie. In a sequence based on a 1981 incident, a nun is raped and mutilated at a Harlem convent school. Bo and Duke are not part of the investigation, which leads to trouble when they begin to get an inside track on the case. Their mob contacts attract the attention of two FBI agents (Amy Irving and Victor Slezak), who put pressure on Bo and Duke as part of a federal investigation. When Duke's debts to crime bosses become a problem, Bo steps in, creating yet more friction with his old pal Richie. Filmed in New York and Toronto, this film was shown at the 1998 Mill Valley Film Festival. The real-life Bo Dietl occasionally turns up as a guest on The Howard Stern Show. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Four men just barely on the right side of the law step into a web of danger and corruption in this drama. In the early 1950s, Max Hoover (Nick Nolte) is a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who leads what's been dubbed "the hat squad," a group of sharp-dressed cops who are ordered to stamp out organized crime using any means necessary, with legality and delicacy not much of an issue. Hoover and his partners Ellery Coolidge (Chazz Palminteri), Eddie Hall (Michael Madsen), and Arthur Relyea (Chris Penn) are looking into the brutal murder of a young woman named Allison Pond (Jennifer Connelly). In the course of their investigation, they discover that Allison had a lively sexual history, and she possessed explicit films of herself with her lovers, including Gen. Thomas Timms (John Malkovich), leader of the newly-formed Atomic Energy Commission. Timms becomes a key suspect, and he reveals the first of a long trail of troubling secrets, but Hoover has secrets of his own that he's trying to keep covered in the process -- including the fact that he and Allison were once an item. Popular vocalist Aaron Neville has a cameo as a singer at a night spot. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cult figure Abel Ferrara directed this dark, emotional tale of life among the criminal underworld, set in the late 1930s. The Tempio Brothers -- Ray (Christopher Walken), Chez (Chris Penn), and Johnny (Vincent Gallo) -- work with the mob; Ray is the cool and methodical type, Chez is an angry man who tends to fly off the handle, and Johnny is the odd man out, whose work with labor unions has given him a strong interest in socialism. When Johnny is murdered by rival mobster Gaspare (Benicio del Toro), it has a profound effect on his brothers. Ray is determined to seek revenge, even though his wife Jeanette (Anabella Sciorra), realizing a reprisal will only lead to more violence, begs him to reconsider, while Chez begins losing his tenuous grip on reality, causing no small discomfort for his wife Clara (Isabella Rossellini). In time, both brothers are forced to deal with the ugly repercussions of their family's long-standing criminal lifestyle. Chris Penn's performance as Chez earned him the "Best Actor" trophy at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide