Jan Speck Movies
A stranger pulled into a deadly scheme races against time to save his daughter in this thriller. Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is an accountant who comes to L.A. with his ten-year-old daughter Lynn (Courtney Chase) to attend a funeral. On the street, Gene and Lynn are pulled aside by Mr. Smith (Christopher Walken) and Ms. Jones (Roma Maffia), who flash what look like police badges and usher them into a van. Gene soon discovers that he's been kidnapped, and his captors have an unusual demand -- if Gene does not murder Gov. Eleanor Grant (Marsha Mason) within 75 minutes, his daughter will be killed. Gene now has just an hour and a quarter to tip off the authorities, spare Gov. Grant, and find out what Smith and Jones are trying to do, along with saving his daughter's life. He finds a much-needed ally in one-legged shoe-shine man Huey (Charles S. Dutton). Most of the action in Nick of Time occurs in "real time," meaning that the passage of time on screen matches that of real life, as the frequent shots of clocks and watches will attest. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, (more)
Wesley Snipes is battling bad guys in the air again, this time with parachutes, in this action-packed suspense thriller. Pete Nessip (Snipes) is a Federal Marshall who, teamed with his brother Terry (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), is escorting criminal computer genius Earl Leedy (Michael Jeter) to a new prison facility. Pete, Terry, and Earl are on a jet en route to Earl's new lockup when terrorists attempt a daring hijacking; Terry is killed in an explosion aboard the plane, and suddenly Earl is missing. Pete discovers that a team of sky-diving outlaws, led by former DEA agent gone bad Ty Moncrief (Gary Busey), have snatched Earl from his flight and spirited him away for a special raid on Washington D.C.; Ty and his men intend to take advantage of an obscure rule in which the normally restricted airspace in Washington D.C. is open to parachute enthusiasts on July 4. Eager to avenge his brother's death and put both Ty and Earl behind bars, Pete recruits sky-diving expert Jessie Crossman (Yancy Butler) to teach him how to infiltrate Ty's team of sky-bound criminals. Superb aerial stunt work highlights this film; please note that Pete's last name is an anagram for the leading man's last name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Gary Busey, (more)
In Stakeout, cop Richard Dreyfuss fell in love with Madeline Stowe, the woman he and his partner Emilio Estevez were watching during a police stakeout. Stowe's back in Another Stakeout, but her part is fleeting and unbilled. On the other hand, we get plenty of Dreyfuss and Estevez, still both as cantankerous and obnoxious as ever. This time, our two heroes are in search of a Mafia witness who has disappeared after an attempt on her life. While holed up in a judge's mansion, staking out the apartment where the woman may or may not return, the pair are subject to the comic aggravation of DA's assistant Rosie O'Donnell, who's brought her "darling" little rotweiler along for company. Another Stakeout works a little harder for its laughs than its predecessor; the best scenes go to Ms. O'Donnell and to nonplussed supporting players Dennis Farina and Marcia Strassman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, (more)
Director John Badham's remake of French action thriller La Femme Nikita moves the action to the U.S., where Maggie (Bridget Fonda) is a strung-out Washington, D.C. drug addict who kills a policeman in a pharmaceutical-induced haze. Sentenced to death, Maggie is rescued by a shady operative, Bob (Gabriel Byrne), who offers to save her life if she'll become a covert government assassin. Maggie agrees and trains for a life as a professional killer under a new name, Claudia. Her classes include weaponry, martial arts, explosives, and even social graces under the tutelage of Amanda (Anne Bancroft). Claudia is transformed into a classy sophisticate and is assigned to Venice, California, where she falls for J.P. (Dermot Mulroney), an attractive photographer who lives downstairs. Claudia's highly dangerous job soon interferes when she's ordered to carry out a series of clever assassinations, including a hit in a restaurant and a hotel bombing. When one particular killing goes horribly wrong, she gets some assistance from Victor the Cleaner (Harvey Keitel), a disposal artist who may have also been ordered to get rid of Claudia. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, (more)
Action film director John Badham bites the hand that feeds him in this action movie spoof that features ribbing of pretty-boy Hollywood action stars by Michael J. Fox and a parody of colorful, hair-trigger James Woods types by the man himself. Woods plays New York homicide detective John Moss, who is within an inch of closing in on a serial killer who calls himself The Party Crasher (Stephen Lang) because his specialty is shooting his victims in the middle of discos. Chasing The Party Crasher after his latest victim has been dispatched, Moss finds himself hanging onto the door of a speeding truck with The Party Crasher at the wheel. When Moss is thrown off the truck and nearly killed, The Party Crasher escapes, and Moss is taken off the case. Moss is given a new assignment --to tag around with Hollywood action film star Nick Lang (Michael J. Fox), the popular hero of the "Smoking Gun" movies. Lang spotted Moss on a television news show and thinks he would be the ideal cop to study for adding authenticity to an up-coming police action picture. Posing as Moss's rookie partner, Lang follows Moss everywhere, proceeding to spoil his pursuit of The Party Crasher and interfering with Moss's burgeoning affair with his girlfriend Susan (Anabella Sciorra). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, James Woods, (more)
Though John Badham's Stakeout doesn't flinch in the violence department, the film concentrates primarily on characterization. Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez play a pair of Seattle detectives, assigned to capture escaped hood Aidan Quinn. The twosome spends much of the film on stakeout in a lonely, deserted house; the object of their scrutiny is Madeline Stowe, Quinn's former girlfriend. Pretending to be a telephone repairman, Dreyfuss plants a bug in Stowe's apartment--thereby inaugurating a romance that compromises the detective's objectivity. In the climax, Quinn gets the upper hand--at least until the fists start flying. Perfect as it stood, Stakeout didn't need to be elaborated upon with a sequel, but Another Stakeout was produced all the same. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, (more)
Struck by lightning, an endearing little robot known only as "Number 5" escapes from an experimental electronics firm. Technician Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) and his indecipherable East Indian assistant, Ben Jabituya (Fisher Stevens), set out to locate Number 5 before the military can go through with its plans to destroy the robot. Number 5 takes refuge with loopy Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), who is convinced that the mechanical man is an extraterrestrial. Hoping to teach the "alien" all about Earth, she fills Number 5's memory banks with reams of pop culture -- and then the real fun begins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, (more)
It takes a fierce three-day bicycle race up in the mountains to reunite two formerly feuding brothers in this film written by Steve Tesich, the creator of another cycle movie, 1979's Breaking Away. This film will please the cycling lovers out there, as it includes actual footage taken from the famous Coors International Bicycle Classic, held in the Colorado Rockies. The plot revolves around the suspicion that one of the two brothers -- either the pragmatic sports doctor Marcus (Kevin Costner) or the impudent, driven David (David Marshall Grant) -- is likely afflicted with an inherited tendency toward cerebral aneurysms. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Costner, David Marshall Grant, (more)
An air-traffic controller (Chevy Chase) is having the worst luck: first his girlfriend leaves him, and then he experiences a nuclear disaster. His life begins to pick up after he realizes that the radiation fallout has given him magical telekinetic powers. He decides to settle a few scores with his new-found power. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Patti D'Arbanville, (more)
