Gianni Russo Movies

Oliver Stone takes on professional football, a sport whose grace and delicacy are a good match for his filmmaking style. Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), the head coach of the Miami Sharks, won back-to-back championships four years ago. But new team owner Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz) has little enthusiasm for the finer points of the game and is concerned only with the bottom line. The longtime strongman of Tony's team has been "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid), a 39-year-old quarterback, but Christina balks at renewing his contract. When Cap is injured during a game, third-string rookie quarterback Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) goes on in his place and becomes a major star. But Beaman is mostly interested in fame and money, and he has little regard for Tony and his teammates. Any Given Sunday also stars James Woods as the team's doctor, LL Cool J as a star running back, Jim Brown as a former football great turned Sharks' defensive coordinator, Ann-Margret as Christina's alcoholic mother, Bill Bellamy as a wide receiver, Elizabeth Berkley as Tony's favorite prostitute, and Charlton Heston as the football commissioner. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Investigating the murder of a famous movie queen, Hunter (Fred Dryer) and McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) discover to their surprise that the dead woman had quite a checkered past. Key players in the intrigue that follows are a jealous and covetous sister, a homeless man, and several minions of the CIA. This first episode of a two-part story was adapted from a novel by former police detective Dallas L. Barnes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When struggling lounge singer Johnny Slade landed a good-paying gig at a hot new club he figured that his time had finally come, until he recognized a correlation between the heinous original songs he's instructed to sing and a series of mysterious crimes. Hired by an elusive boss to sing at a happening new nightclub, Johnny Slade was happy just to collect a paycheck after years of crooning for no cash. But each night Johnny is given a terrible new song to sing, and each night something explosive happens in the local underworld. Before long, Johnny has realized that his shady benefactor is actually a former mob-boss in hiding, and that he uses Johnny's music to communicate orders to his henchmen. Now every time Johnny opens his mouth, someone else takes their last breath. So what's a hapless singer to do when they realize that each song sung means another life taken? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Tony Curtis stars as the feared leader of "Murder Incorporated" in this underworld drama based on the life of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Lepke began his criminal career as a petty thief in his teens; a stretch in prison taught him the finer points of life on the wrong side of the law. After getting out of jail, Lepke and his pal Gurrah Shapiro (Warren Berlinger) join a gang who hire themselves out as strikebreakers, and the vicious but clever Lepke soon rises through the ranks. Lepke makes powerful friends with mob kingpins "Lucky" Luciano (Vic Tayback) and Albert Anastasia (Gianni Russo), and when high-ranking but deranged gangster "Dutch" Schultz (John Durren) announces he's going to kill District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey (Richard C. Adams), Lepke is chosen to rub "Dutch" out. Lepke handles the assignment well, and he's able to strike up a deal with the various Mafia families -- he'll form a separate organization to handle executions and assassinations, and he'll hire out his services to any mobsters who need it, provided the mob bosses approve the killings. Between "Murder Incorporated" and a drug ring operated with Luciano, Lepke has become a wealthy and important man in the underworld, but ironically he finds soon himself himself investigated by the man whose life he unwittingly saved -- Dewey. Lepke also features comedian and impressionist Vaughn Meader as the voice of Walter Winchell. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The lives of college students attending a beachfront university in California become mingled -- and mangled -- when the deranged former husband (Jack Scalia) of the beautiful former fashion model/pro volleyball player Stacey (Jacqueline Collen) finds her living on the campus. Meanwhile, Randy (Casper Van Dien), whose grades are suffering from his fixation on several lovely co-eds (Denise Richards among them), has been caught cheating on a test by his professor (Sally Kellerman) who threatens him with expulsion, despite the fact that Randy's father (Elliot Gould) is a major contributor to the school. What's worse, the big beach volleyball tournament hosted by the on-campus bar is threatened when a sponsor pulls out, unless something can be done to draw attention to the event... Perhaps having an assassin in the bleachers will do it. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

For his sophomore effort, director Gary Ross re-teams with Tobey Maguire and William H. Macy, stars of his directorial debut Pleasantville, for this depression-era sports drama about the legendary racehorse, Seabiscuit. Unlike 1949's fictionalized The Story of Seabiscuit starring Shirley Temple, this version attempts to present a factual account of the story, which centers around the three men who saw the famed horse to victory. Jeff Bridges stars as Charles Howard, an entrepreneur who owns the unlikely racehorse. Howard teams with partially blind boxer-turned-jockey Red Pollard (Maguire in his first performance since annihilating the 2002 box-office in Spider-Man) and horse trainer Tom Smith (Chris Cooper fresh off his best-supporting actor Oscar for Adaptation). Together, the three work to help the famed horse to several symbolic victories that helped to inspire a downtrodden 1930s America. The supporting cast, headed by Macy, includes Elizabeth Banks (Spider-Man) and real-life jockeys Gary Stevens and Chris McCarron. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

John Ritter and Pam Dawber star as Roy and Helen Knable, a suburban American couple having marital problems. Roy has become a couch potato, and a resentful Helen wants him to ditch the remote. When the demonic Spike (Jeffrey Jones) offers Roy a deal on the ultimate satellite TV system, Roy doesn't realize that he's just signed away his soul. Roy and Helen are sucked into their own television, where they endure a gauntlet of Hellish television shows such as "Northern Overexposure" and "I Love Lucifer." When their kids Darryl (David Tom) and Diane (Heather McComb) realize that their parents are on the twisted television, they set out to rescue them. Stay Tuned contains several inspired delights, in particular an original cartoon short by Looney Tunes legend Chuck Jones. The film was the debut of writing team Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein, who would stay in the wacky comedy genre with a whopping four major releases in 1994. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

The huge success of the video games featuring animated Italian plumbers the Mario Brothers led to this $42 million live action movie. The two brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) live in Manhattan and are chasing Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis), who wears a necklace made from a meteor fragment. Its powers can free a race of reptilian creatures from the city's sewers. The villainous ruler of the creatures, who are descendants of dinosaurs, is King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). Koopa has kidnapped Daisy and taken her to the underworld of Dinohattan, which is rat-infested and strewn with garbage. The Mario Brothers must overcome many obstacles, just as they do in video games, to free the princess. The film spares no expense with its use of animatronic monsters and high-tech special effects. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

TThough barely released to theaters, the tongue-in-cheek crime melodrama Four Deuces became a Late Late Show fixture in the '80s. Jack Palance plays Vic Morano, a high-ranking Prohibition-era mobster with a weakness for women. Vic's humanity begins surfacing when he falls for gorgeous blonde Wendy (Carol Lynley). The film's title refers to the name of his speakeasy, and to his gang, which consists of himself, Wendy, and a brace comic-relief hoodlums. The plot concerns Vic's ongoing war with rival hoodlum Chico Hamilton (Warren Berlinger). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business." A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother, Sonny (James Caan), and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible.

After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide