George Pan Cosmatos Movies
International filmmaker George Pan Cosmatos has been directing films since the early 1970s, but gained real recognition for directing the Hollywood film Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985. He has worked in many different countries and can speak five languages fluently. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1997
- R
Presidential advisor Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) is hunted by an unknown assailant in this political thriller. With the help of Chief-of-Staff Jake Conrad (Donald Sutherland) and the newspaper journalist Amanda (Linda Hamilton), he uncovers an assassination plot to kill the President and his most trusted advisors. Bobby battles forces in the government he has sworn to uphold, as his every move is monitored by high-tech surveillance cameras. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlie Sheen, Donald Sutherland, (more)
A high-energy action adventure based on legend rather than historical fact finds Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) desiring to retire from law enforcement. With brothers Virgil (Sam Elliot) and Morgan (Bill Paxton), he arrives in Tombstone, Arizona intending to build his fortune. He discovers that long-time friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) is there and that the town is run by a group of brutal outlaws called the Cowboys. Earp, frustrated with his laudanum-addicted wife, begins a romance with traveling stage actress Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany). Meanwhile, the Cowboys terrorize the citizens of Tombstone unchecked.
When the town marshal is killed by a Cowboy, Earp steps in to prevent a lynching by an angry mob. He also refuses to hand the killer over to his fellows, beginning the enmity between the Cowboys and the Earp brothers. Virgil, overcome with guilt at doing nothing to help the Tombstone citizens, accepts the position of town marshal. With Wyatt and Morgan as his deputies, and the help of Doc, Virgil attempts to arrest several Cowboys, resulting in the famous OK Corral shoot-out. The Cowboys take revenge by ambushing two of the brothers and injuring Virgil and killing Morgan. The Earps leave town, apparently cowed. Wyatt returns, wearing the badge of a U.S. marshal, vowing to destroy every last Cowboy. He hunts them mercilessly, until the leader, Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) challenges Wyatt to a duel. While not regarded as an artistic masterpiece, "Tombstone" is considered the best of director George P. Cosmatos' prolific films. The all-star cast (including Thomas Haden Church and Billy Bob Thornton in small roles) delivers solid performances. Both William A. Fraker's cinematography and Bruce Broughton's stirring musical score are expertly designed for dramatic effect. Blood is shown liberally in several key scenes, but seems intended to show that there is nothing glorious in Wyatt Earp's actions, only necessity. He and his deputies take on the symbolism of the horsemen of the apocalypse -- dispensing judgement, and the Biblical references form a symmetry at the beginning and end of the film.
~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide
When the town marshal is killed by a Cowboy, Earp steps in to prevent a lynching by an angry mob. He also refuses to hand the killer over to his fellows, beginning the enmity between the Cowboys and the Earp brothers. Virgil, overcome with guilt at doing nothing to help the Tombstone citizens, accepts the position of town marshal. With Wyatt and Morgan as his deputies, and the help of Doc, Virgil attempts to arrest several Cowboys, resulting in the famous OK Corral shoot-out. The Cowboys take revenge by ambushing two of the brothers and injuring Virgil and killing Morgan. The Earps leave town, apparently cowed. Wyatt returns, wearing the badge of a U.S. marshal, vowing to destroy every last Cowboy. He hunts them mercilessly, until the leader, Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) challenges Wyatt to a duel. While not regarded as an artistic masterpiece, "Tombstone" is considered the best of director George P. Cosmatos' prolific films. The all-star cast (including Thomas Haden Church and Billy Bob Thornton in small roles) delivers solid performances. Both William A. Fraker's cinematography and Bruce Broughton's stirring musical score are expertly designed for dramatic effect. Blood is shown liberally in several key scenes, but seems intended to show that there is nothing glorious in Wyatt Earp's actions, only necessity. He and his deputies take on the symbolism of the horsemen of the apocalypse -- dispensing judgement, and the Biblical references form a symmetry at the beginning and end of the film.
~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, (more)
Leviathan, a sci-fi thriller directed by George Pan Cosmatos, is the story of a group of scientists who discover a sunken Russian submarine which contains a monster that is the product of a genetic experiment. This film, a hybrid of both The Abyss and Alien, has a decent cast, including Peter Weller as Beck, the lead oceanographer. Working with a good budget, action director Cosmatos, should have been able to put together better action sequences and a more frightening monster, but he gives this derivative, silly film below-par special effects and no particular visual style. Leviathan, while it may entertain a less-sophisticated viewer, has little to offer fans of the genre who are looking for thrilling special effects. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, (more)
Crime is the disease and Sylvester Stallone is the cure in Cobra, a high-octane rehash of the Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry films, burnished to a 1980s action sheen. Stallone is Marion Cobretti, a cop called in when regular police methods have failed. Cobra is sent to get a cult of Charles Manson-like serial killers and to protect Ingrid (Brigitte Nielsen), a beautiful, statuesque witness who is set to testify against them. Cobra deposits Ingrid in an out-of-the-way town for safe-keeping, but a mole in the police department tips off the killers. The gang comes racing into town to get Ingrid, but Cobra is there waiting for them, ready to spring into action. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, (more)
The dark-horse box-office hit First Blood spawned this even more successful sequel in which Sylvester Stallone, reprising his role as ex-Green Beret loner John Rambo, is extricated from prison by his former superior Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) for a top-secret operation to bring back POWs still held in Vietnam. Teamed up with a female Vietnamese freedom fighter (Julia Nickson), Rambo embarks on a "reconnaissance" mission. A love interest develops in the beautiful young guide -- she dies by enemy fire; he seeks revenge. Of course, there are also corrupt American officials behind the mission, and Rambo saves them for last. Over the course of the film, Rambo kills enough communist bad guys to fill the Rose Bowl, using everything from fishing line to exploding arrowheads to rocket launchers. Stallone mumbles, grunts, and groans his way through this laughable and often insulting film intended to exploit anti-communist fervor at the height of the Reagan years. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, (more)
When a banking executive tries to outsmart an enormous and seriously pesky rat, it is a case of a battle of wits between two unarmed opponents in this tedious rodent horror treatise on the multiple dangers of rats. Bert Hughes (Peter Weller) is home alone in his Manhattan apartment, trying to work out a major change in his trust company when a noisy rat starts scratching around his periphery, and he becomes obsessed with exterminating it. By the time Hughes is through, his whole apartment is nearly exterminated -- and his friends are keeping their distance due to his rat-mania. (In the middle of a business dinner he brings up the topic of rats served as "stringy chicken" in an Asian country.) Rats may be Of Unknown Origin, but more than their questionable hygiene and genealogy is needed to frighten viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, (more)
- 1979
- PG
The original British version of Escape to Athena ran 125 minutes; American prints were judiciously cut to 101 minutes, emphasizing the action content and neutralizing the duller dialogue sequences. Roger Moore stars as Major Otto Hecht, an anti-Nazi German who presides over a World War II POW camp. The prisoners, played by such diverse types as Elliott Gould, David Niven, and Sonny Bono, plan an escape with a group of Greek partisans (headed by Telly Savalas). It's not that the POWs are dissatisfied with life behind barbed wire -- it's just that they've been coerced into rescuing valuable art treasures from the Nazis, and there's a possibility of turning a profit! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Telly Savalas, (more)
- 1979
- PG
A Nazi-held island in World War II is the sight of an odd union between Allied prisoners of war, USO entertainers, Greek partisans and patriotic prostitutes. (AKA Escape to Athena) ~ All Movie Guide
This bizarre entry into the disaster film genre concerns a group of hapless passengers aboard a transcontinental luxury train who are infected with a viral plague by a group of terrorists. Burt Lancaster plays military man Mackenzie, who wants to send the train across a rickety bridge so all the passengers will die, with Mackenzie reasoning the tragedy will give the terrorist movement a bad name. Among the passengers on the train trying to build up antibodies are Jennifer Rispoli Chamberlain (Sophia Loren); Nicole (Ava Gardner), who is embroiled in an affair with a younger man named Robby Navarro (Martin Sheen); and Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris), a physician who wants to save the passengers but ends up duking it out with the terrorists. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, (more)
- 1973
On March 24, 1944, in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome, one of the most infamous atrocities of World War II occurred -- the mass execution of 330 Italians in retaliation for the deaths of 33 Germans. The book Death in Rome contends that Pope Pius XII knew of the German plan but did nothing to stop it. In this film adaptation, Richard Burton plays Col. Herbert Kappler, a Nazi officer torn between his devotion to Hitler's cause and his love for Italy when he is ordered by his superior officer, Gen. Kurt Maelzer (Leo McKern), to see that this execution is carried out. Opposing the Germans and reacting against the silence of the Pope is Vatican priest Don Antonelli (Marcello Mastroianni), who chooses to die with the Italians rather than continue to act as a middleman between the German army and the Romans. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
In March of 1944 the Thied-Reich's stronghold over Europe was weakening, and the swelling resistance in Nazi-occupied Rome would spark one of the most devastating wartime atrocities in modern history. When thirty-three members of the SS military police were ambushed and gunned down by the Roman underground, an enraged German High Command ordered the death of ten Roman civilians for each of the thirty-three SS soldiers killed. A decree issued directly from the Pope states that Roman priest Pietro Antonelli (Marcello Mastroianni) must collaborate with Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kappler (Richard Burton) in gathering 330 Roman citizens for systematic execution. Torn by his faith and devoted to pacifism, Father Antonelli must choose between defying direct orders from the highest seat in the Catholic church, or remaining true to his vows and standing by as 330 innocents are gunned down on the orders of history's most notorious dictator. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
