Gary McLarty Movies

Further cementing 2003 as the year of Ron Shelton cop movies, the director continued his vacation from the sports genre with Hollywood Homicide, a police comedy that comes right on the heels of Shelton's Dark Blue, a decidedly grittier cop thriller. The film stars Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett as LAPD homicide detectives Joe Gavilan and K.C. Calden, two cops with bigger dreams. Gavilan moonlights as a real estate agent, while Calden teaches yoga and yearns for a career on the big screen. When an entire hip-hop group is murdered on-stage, Gavilan and Calden are called in to handle the case. As their investigation progresses, they begin to suspect that the rappers were offed for attempting to get out of their recording contract with label head Sartain (Isaiah Washington). Along with Bruce Greenwood and Keith David, the supporting cast boasts a plethora of real-life musicians, including Dr. Dre, Gladys Knight, Dwight Yoakam, Master P, and Ronald DeVoe of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

A successful career criminal considers getting out of the business after one last score, while an obsessive cop desperately tries to put him behind bars in this intelligent thriller written and directed by Michael Mann. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is a thief who specializes in big, risky jobs, such as banks and armored cars. He's very good at what he does; he's bright, methodical, and has honed his skills as a thief at the expense of his personal life, vowing never to get involved in a relationship from which he couldn't walk away in 30 seconds. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is an L.A.P.D. detective determined to catch McCauley, but while McCauley's personal code has forced him to do without a wife and children, Hanna's dedication has made a wreck of the home he's tried to have; he's been divorced twice, he's all but a stranger to his third wife, and he has no idea how to reach out to his troubled step-daughter. While McCauley has enough money to retire and is planning to move to New Zealand, he loves the thrill of robbery as much as the profit, and is blocking out plans for one more job; meanwhile, he's met a woman, Eady (Amy Brenneman), whom he's not so sure he can walk away from. The supporting cast includes Val Kilmer as Chris, one of McCauley's partners; Ashley Judd as his wife Charlene; Jon Voight as Nate; Hank Azaria as Alan Marciano; and Henry Rollins as Hugh, who is beaten up by Hanna. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Deadbeat dads be damned. Patrick Swayze plays a con man who tries to live up to the ideals of "family values" by kidnapping his son and daughter from the evil clutches of a corrupt orphanage and taking them on a cross-country trip in his vintage convertible. To complicate matters, his daughter has been sexually molested by the head of the orphanage, who fears that she may prosecute if given the opportunity. This family drama is also a zany road movie as the re-united father and children flee the police on a quest to restore their family. ~ Laura Abraham, All Movie Guide

Based on the late Charles Willeford's series of hard-boiled crime novels featuring Miami cop Hoke Moseley, the Jonathan Demme-produced Miami Blues opens with the prison release of Frederick Frenger Jr. (Alec Baldwin), a deranged killer who has barely de-boarded his plane before he's killed a Hare Krishna in the airport. Checking into his hotel, Frenger meets up with Susie Waggoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a young prostitute with dreams of domestic life, and the two quickly become romantically involved. Meanwhile, the Hare Krishna murder case is given to Moseley (Fred Ward), a grizzled vet who vows to hunt down Frenger, but may be getting too long in the tooth for the demands of his job. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Lethal Weapon 2 reteams Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as, respectively, "loose cannon" LA detective Martin Riggs and Riggs' partner, the cautious family man Roger Murtaugh. The villain this time is a South African diplomat (Joss Ackland) who doubles as a drug dealer. Though Riggs knows what's going on thanks to characterless character witness Joe Pesci, he can't touch the villain because of "diplomatic immunity." After perils too numerous to mention, Riggs and Murtaugh shoot it out with the heavies on the deck of a South African cargo ship. Lethal Weapon 2, of course, contains as one of its comic high-points a now famous suspense scene: Mel Gibson agonizingly attempting to extricate a terrified Danny Glover from a booby-trapped toilet seat. Gibson, Glover, Donner and Joe Pesci would be reunited three years later for Lethal Weapon 3 and in 1998 for Lethal Weapon 4. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) has seemingly smoothed out his differences with his Beverly Hills superior Bogomil (Ronny Cox), but there's trouble ahead for both men, not to mention two other holdovers from the first Cop film, officers Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton). The "untouchable" heavy this time out is masterminding a series of violent robberies, committed by leather-freak hoods Dean Stockwell and Brigitte Nielsen. Unaccumstomed to this nastiness, Bogomil entreats street-smart Foley to help find the miscreants. But mean-spirited chief of police Lutz (Allen Garfield) will brook no interference from outsiders-especially the profanely insouciant Mr. Foley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After winning the heavyweight boxing championship and single-handedly winning the war in Vietnam for America, Sylvester Stallone moves on to a real challenge -- arm wrestling -- in this action drama with a family undercurrent. Lincoln Hawk (Stallone) is a long-haul truck driver who years ago abandoned his wife Christina (Susan Blakely) and their son Michael (David Mendenhall). Hawk comes to see the error of his ways and wants to reconcile with his loved ones, only to discover that Christina is in the hospital suffering through the last stages of a terminal illness. Her wealthy and powerful father, Jason Cutler (Robert Loggia), has come to hate Hawk for the way he left his daughter to fend for herself, and he wants full custody of the boy upon her death. But Hawk is desperate to mend his relationship with Michael. He kidnaps the boy, and as Jason's hired goons give chase, Hawk points his truck toward the one place where he can win the money and recognition that will earn his son's respect -- a wrist-wrestling championship in Las Vegas. Actor Sylvester Stallone also co-wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Filled with enough cameos to keep film buffs entertained, this otherwise routine action-comedy by John Landis boasts Michelle Pfeiffer as one of its major attractions. She plays Diana, a woman prone to having affairs with some very dangerous men, and Jeff Goldblum is Ed Okin, an aerospace engineer whose lot is thrown in with Diana's when the woman is caught in a bind at the airport. The beautiful Diana is an airhead on the scale of the Hindenberg, her only concerns are clothes and men -- which she either most attractively wears or wears out, depending. While Ed is at the airport one day trying to sort out his life, Diana arrives with six smuggled emeralds in tow and is immediately welcomed by several hired assassins. Fear and expediency propel her into Ed's car, and the two are off on a series of narrow escapes that has them pursued by everyone from Iranians to baddies played by well-known international directors (Roger Vadim) or singers (David Bowie) or comedians (Dan Aykroyd). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Steve Martin and Carl Reiner concoct one of Martin's best comic vehicles with Martin playing the world's top brain surgeon, Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr -- he ought to know, he said so himself. Hfuhruhurr pioneered the radical new cranial screw-top technique, but he grieves over the untimely death of his wife Rebecca, carrying around a small plastic likeness of her to get through the long and lonely evenings. Thinking of her while driving home, Hfuhruhurr takes his eyes off the road and runs down the beautiful but deadly Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner). Hfuhruhurr performs surgery which saves her life, but as she recovers, Hfuhruhurr doesn't realize Dolores is a gold-digging vixen who has driven her latest husband (George Furth) to death by apoplexy. She is now looking for a new victim and Hfuhruhurr fits the bill. They marry, but Dolores denies her husband sexual favors, which frustrates Hfuhruhurr to distraction. He takes Dolores on a belated honeymoon to Austria, where he meets fellow brain surgeon Dr. Necessiter (David Warner), who keeps a wide assortment of brains in his laboratory. Dolores takes the opportunity to have an extramarital affair, and when Hfuhruhurr finds out he dumps her. But in Necessiter's laboratory, Hfuhruhurr becomes attracted to Brain #21, Ann Uumellmahaye (voice of Sissy Spacek), with whom he communicates telepathically. At last, here is one case where a man loves a woman for her mind rather than her body (which doesn't exist)! But Ann's brain is deteriorating rapidly; Hfuhruhurr needs to find a body and transplant the brain quickly in order to save Ann. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Director Robert Aldrich's last film, All the Marbles stars Peter Falk as a "win-at-all-costs" type manager of a ladies tag-team wrestling combo. These girls are good and Falk wants them great. And he doesn't really care what they've got to do to get there. (This film's "R" rating is not for Raunchy, but it could be for "Revealing.") Following sort of a Rocky theme, this film finds our ladies tag team climbing its way to the top of the women's wrestling world where they face off against the world's best. ~ All Movie Guide

Expanding on their Saturday Night Live characters, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd star as Jake and Elwood Blues, two white boys with black soul. Sporting cool shades and look-alike suits, Jake and Elwood are dispatched on a "mission from God" by their former teacher, Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman). Said mission is to raise $5000 to save an orphanage. In the course of their zany adventures, the Blues Brothers run afoul of neo-Nazi Henry Gibson, perform the theme from Rawhide before the most unruly bar crowd in written history, and lay waste to hundreds of cars on the streets and freeways of Chicago. In case you aren't swept up in the infectuous nuttiness of the brothers Blue, you might have fun spotting film's legion of guest stars, including James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Steve Lawrence, Twiggy, Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman), Frank Oz, and Steven Spielberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director John Landis put himself on the map with this low-budget, fabulously successful comedy, which made a then-astounding 62 million dollars and started a slew of careers for its cast in the process. National Lampoon's Animal House is set in 1962 on the campus of Faber College in Faber, PA. The first glimpse we get of the campus is the statue of its founder Emil Faber, on the base of which is inscribed the motto, "Knowledge Is Good." Incoming freshmen Larry "Pinto" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman (Stephen Furst) find themselves rejected by the pretentious Omega fraternity, and instead pledge to Delta House. The Deltas are a motley fraternity of rejects and maladjusted undergraduates (some approaching their late twenties) whose main goal -- seemingly accomplished in part by their mere presence on campus -- is disrupting the staid, peaceful, rigidly orthodox, and totally hypocritical social order of the school, as represented by the Omegas and the college's dean, Vernon Wormer (John Vernon). Dean Wormer decides that this is the year he's going to get the Deltas expelled and their chapter decertified; he places the fraternity on "double secret probation" and, with help from Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) and hard-nosed member Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), starts looking for any pretext on which to bring the members of the Delta fraternity up on charges.

The Deltas, oblivious to the danger they're in, are having a great time, steeped in irreverence, mild debauchery, and occasional drunkenness, led by seniors Otter (Tim Matheson), Hoover (James Widdoes), D-Day (Bruce McGill), Boon (Peter Riegert), and pledge master John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi). They're given enough rope to hang themselves, but even then manage to get into comical misadventures on a road trip (where they arrange an assignation with a group of young ladies from Emily Dickinson University). Finally, they are thrown out of school, and, as a result, stripped of their student deferments (and, thus, eligible for the draft). They decide to commit one last, utterly senseless (and screamingly funny) slapstick act of rebellion, making a shambles of the university's annual homecoming parade, and, in the process, getting revenge on the dean, the Omegas, and everyone else who has ever gone against them. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

John Wayne returned to the role that won him an Oscar in this sequel to the western classic True Grit. Rooster Cogburn (Wayne) has once again been stripped of his badge after some questionable behavior with his gun, but he's given the chance to earn it back after an especially appalling crime demands an experienced lawman. A gang of violent and ruthless criminals, led by Hawk (Richard Jordan) and Breed (Anthony Zerbe), have stolen a shipment of explosive nitroglycerine and cut a swath through a village led by a preacher and his flock. The preacher died, along with many others, and his daughter, Eula Goodnight (Katharine Hepburn), is determined that the outlaws will be brought to justice. Cogburn is given the task of tracking down the criminals, but he's less than enthusiastic about the fact Goodnight insists on tagging along. Rooster Cogburn marked the first (and last) time John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn would work together on screen; it was also the final film from noted producer Hal Wallis. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide