Daniel Roebuck Movies
Lead actor, onscreen from 1985. ~ All Movie Guide- 1988
- R
Two brothers (Richard Gere, Kevin Anderson) have inherited a large farm (once voted "Farm of the Year") from their father, but cannot keep it afloat. When the farm goes bankrupt, the pair decide to torch the place and take off across the Midwest, fleeing the law to become folk heroes for many rural farmers in the area. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Kevin Anderson, (more)
- 1987
- PG
Writer/producer/director Eric Parkinson and writer/producer/star Vivian Schilling were behind this peculiar attempt to turn a pair of short films made for USC Film School into a horror anthology. It doesn't work, but is notable for having one of its segments directed by Stephen Sommers, who went on to make The Mummy and Deep Rising. A woman is compelled to write the screenplay to a horror film and goes on a camping trip (after dreaming a strange segment about a magical book), where other stories are related. The Sommers story concerns a petty criminal stuck in a time warp, while the other segment (directed by Michael Rissi) has a female chess player given a serious challenge when an evil game designer puts her into a deadly maze. The cast includes Lance August, Daniel Roebuck from River's Edge in dual roles, and Gina Hightower. Rissi returned to direct the marginally more interesting Soultaker, also from a script by Parkinson and Schilling. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
Penelope Spheeris, director of the infamous documentary The Decline of Western Civilization may well have given the world its first punk-rock Western in the form of Dudes, a sort of Suburbia meets High Noon meets Deliverance. Three East Coast punks (Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) opt to leave behind the filth and gloom of New York City to become modern-day pioneers on the trail to California; that is, until a gang of redneck road warrior-types led by Lee Ving (of the punk band Fear) waylay the trio and kill Flea in a fashion brutal enough to justify the inevitable retribution. After their pleas to the local sheriff fall on deaf ears, Cryer and Roebuck decide instead to follow the law of the West and serve their own brand of justice as what appear to be a bondage-oriented cowboy and a squirrel on steroids. While the plot seems contrived and asinine, the violence often gratuitous, and the characters paper-thin, Spheeris nonetheless manages to create a likeable and highly watchable -- if often silly -- film. Cryer and Roebuck do the best they can with the material, Ving plays an adequately loathsome villain, and Flea lends a glimpse of his acting ability by offering a convincing portrayal of a dead body. Nowhere near being the time capsule that is The Decline of Western Civilization, Dudes still offers some insight into the punk subculture of the '80s. Spheeris later directed the hugely successful Wayne's World as well as The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, (more)
Project X is a top-secret government undertaking involving trained chimpanzees. Grounded pilot Matthew Broderick, assigned to teach the chimps how to operate a flight simulator, discovers that his charges are to be subjected to high levels of radiation to test potential human endurance. Risking a court martial, Broderick links up with Helen Hunt, the researcher who has taught the chimps sign language, to save the simians from destruction. The serious subtext of Project X is forgotten during a Disneyesque comic finale, wherein the lovable chimps nearly trigger a nuclear meltdown! Without taking anything away from human stars Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt, we must note that the most engaging performance in Project X is delivered by Willie the Chimp, who essays the challenging role of Virgil the Chimp. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Broderick, Helen Hunt, (more)
The nude, strangled body of a teenaged girl lies on the edge of the river. Her murderer is her boyfriend, Daniel Roebuck. All the kids in Roebuck's dismal, dead-end town know who committed the murder. Trouble is, no one bothers to turn Roebuck in; some of the teens don't know how to react to the crime, while others, strung out on drugs and booze, just don't give a damn. A study of contemporary alienation, River's Edge was based on a real-life incident that occurred in Milpitas, California, in 1981. That same year, Neal Jimenez wrote his screenplay for River's Edge, but was not able to finance the project until 1987. Except for Dennis Hopper, cast as a holdover from the sixties who hobbles about on one leg and makes love to a blow-up doll, the cast was largely comprised of unknowns, many of whom (Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye) would definitely be heard from in the future. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, (more)
With no more driving force than a 5-mile-an-hour wind, this unlikely sci-fi story is about what happens when sex in the 20th century meets sex in the B.C. era (Before Censors?). An anthropology student named Rex (Daniel Roebuck) is off on a normal field trip when a time warp snaps him up and deposits him in the prehistoric period, when people lived in caves because they could not afford houses. Rex's libido starts working overtime once he meets an attractive cave woman (Cynthia Thompson), and the rest of the story involves a mating game played across a great cultural divide -- that of the protagonists, and that of the audience. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Roebuck, Bill Adams, (more)
- 1981
- R
In this gory horror movie, a group of young, nubile night-school students find themselves unable to hang on to their heads when a mad slasher takes up residence in their hallowed halls. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, (more)
