Michael Fitzgerald Movies

A detective tracking a serial killer who preys on young women finds his investigation complicated by a glamorous Hollywood starlet and a ruthless crime kingpin in director Bertrand Tavernier's adaptation of the James Lee Burke novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski, and Tommy Lee Jones collaborate on the screenplay for the film, which stars Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ned Beatty, and Tom Sizemore. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Veteran screen star Tommy Lee Jones makes his directorial debut with the fractured tale of murder and injustice on the U.S.-Mexico border scripted by Amores perros and 21 Grams screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) is a fresh-faced Border Patrol officer in Cibolo County, Texas whose dedication to his new job leaves his lonely wife Lou Ann (January Jones) with little to do but spend her days at the local diner, where she strikes up a friendship with waitress Rachel (Melissa Leo). Despite her own status as a married woman, Rachel is unfulfilled in her marriage and is intimately involved with both rugged rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and local Sherrif Belmont (Dwight Yoakam). Soon after Pete hires Mexican illegal Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) as a ranch hand, the growing bond between the pair is suddenly shattered when, in a moment of panic on a routine patrol, Mike hastily guns down the innocent Melquaides. When an enraged Pete learns that Mike had unceremoniously buried the illegal immigrant in an unmarked desert grave and local authorities opt to overlook the case, he kidnaps the crooked lawman and sets out to ensure that justice is served with or without the involvement of the local police force. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Sean Penn directed this tense drama of loyalty, honor, and obsession, based on a novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt. Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is a veteran police detective who lives and works in a small Nevada town. On the day of his retirement, it falls to Jerry to handle an especially unpleasant assignment -- a seven-year-old girl has been brutally murdered, and Jerry has to check out the crime scene, and then tell the girl's parents the awful news. The girl's mother (Patricia Clarkson), understandably distraught, demands to know if the killer will be brought to justice, and Jerry promises her that he will personally see to it, "on my soul's salvation." A younger detective also on the case, Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart), thinks he's traced the crime to Toby Jay Wadeneh (Benicio Del Toro), a mentally retarded man who confesses to the murder shortly before killing himself. Stan considers the case closed, but Jerry can't shake his belief that Toby Jay wasn't actually the murderer, and Jerry begins to investigate the case on his own time, over the objections of his former boss, Eric Pollack (Sam Shepard), who reminds Jerry that he's no longer an official member of the police force. Before long, Jerry's personal investigation has taken over his life, and he uncovers evidence that suggests the girl's murder was just one in a series of killings involving young girls and a mysterious man called "the Wizard." When Jerry becomes close to a young single mother, Lori (Robin Wright-Penn), he feels he has reason to believe the murderer may be targeting her eight-year-old daughter, and finds himself using her as a decoy in order to bring the killer to justice. The Pledge marked Jack Nicholson's second starring role in a film directed by Sean Penn following 1995's The Crossing Guard; The Pledge's stellar supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, and Mickey Rourke. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This drama focuses on the efforts of an African clerk who bypasses the correct channels to assist his road building English boss. ~ All Movie Guide

A strange, hallucinatory adaptation of the Malcolm Lowry novel of the same name, John Huston's bleak drama is set during the Mexican "Day of the Dead" ceremony in 1939. Albert Finney stars as Geoffrey Firmin, the booze-besotted former British consul to Cuernevarca, who has cut himself off from his loved ones, the better to drink himself to death while surrounded by all manner of skull-and-skeleton decorations. At the urging of his wife Yvonne (Jacqueline Bisset), his half-brother Hugh (Anthony Andrews) goes on a "heart of darkness" search for his missing sibling. Novelist Lowry was himself a suicidal alcoholic, who poured every drop of his embittered philosophy into the Firmin character. If any director could bring Lowry's difficult novel to life, it was Huston, whose own record for drunken self-destruction is the source of legend. (Huston was actually the seventh director to tackle the novel, which had originally been optioned in 1957 by actor Zachary Scott.) Artists contributing to the fascinating Under the Volcano include the brilliant Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, screenwriter Guy Gallo, composer Alex North, and director Emilio Fernandez, cast in a significant cameo as a bartender. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide