James Bershad Movies

A newspaper heiress is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to join a group of terrorist bank robbers in this docudrama, based on the saga of Patricia Hearst. In 1974, Hearst (Natasha Richardson), the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a student at the University of California. On February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical political group, broke into the Berkeley home she shared with her boyfriend and kidnapped her. Hearst then allegedly spent 57 days locked in a closet as she was indoctrinated into the group's revolutionary beliefs by their charismatic leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames). Eventually, Hearst joined (or at least pretended to join) the SLA, adopted the name Tania and participated in a number of high-profile bank robberies. After several SLA members died in a police fire storm, Hearst and fellow members Bill and Emily Harris (William Forsythe and Frances Fisher) went on the lam and were later arrested. Although she claimed her participation in the group was a ruse carried out to protect herself from further rape, torture, and mind control, Hearst eventually served several years in prison after her 1976 conviction for bank robbery. Based on the novel Every Secret Thing, Hearst's own account of the events, Paul Schrader's film tells the story from the heiress' own viewpoint, with little in the way of conflicting evidence. After President Carter ordered her release from prison in 1979, Hearst went on to act in several films, including Cecil B. Demented, a John Waters spoof whose plot bears some resemblance to her own life story. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

The "boys next door" are Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen), typical California teens freshly graduated from high school. Daunted by the prospect of the real world, the boys decide to go on one last fling in L.A. But it's not all clean, wholesome fun; in fact, Caulfield and Sheen launch their weekend bash by beating up a gas-station attendant, throwing a glass bottle at an old woman, and murdering gay-bar patron Chris (Paul C. Dancer). Somewhere along the line, Bo becomes repelled by their violence spree, but Roy seems to be sexually aroused by all the misery he's causing. And so it goes, without real rhyme or reason, until the bloody denouement. Director Penelope Spheeris later helmed Wayne's World, The Little Rascals, and The Beverly Hillbillies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi