Steven Reich Movies
- 1998
Three small-time hoods are sent off into the desert to deliver a supply of drugs to a distributor and get the distributor's cash. Only the place of the transaction and the amounts involved are set. They do not know exactly when their counterparts will be sent by the distributor. In the meantime, they try to kill time in the corrugated shed they find at the site. They drink beer, quarrel, and, in a truly self-destructive mode, use their cellular phone to arrange for some prostitutes to entertain them. In the course of their liaison with the prostitutes, they use up a fair amount of the drug supply they were to deliver. Will they be lucky enough, or ingenious enough to survive their own stupidity and the wrath of their bosses? ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1994
This science fiction adventure, set in the future, depicts an Earth so polluted that people must live underground to avoid the deadly air. It is the sequel to 1989's Circuitry Man. In this new world, people who once would have plugged into drugs for illicit fun, now turn on with computer chips. The evil Plughead, a biosynthetic man, has a revolutionary chip that allows humans to live a decade beyond normal life expectancy but to manufacture it they must torture innocent people until they die. Plughead has no problem with that; in fact, he rather enjoys it. Plughead's nemesis, Danner is also a biosynthetic man, but he is a good guy. FBI agent Kyle is using Danner to help her find Plughead. Together they travel to a barren desert in search of their foe. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vernon Wells, Deborah Shelton, (more)
- 1993
- R
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In this second Rage and Honor release, Cynthia Rothrock again stars as a high-kicking female CIA agent. She's sent to far-away Indonesia to reveal a money-laundering scheme. She just happens to run into her Australian cop-friend from the first Rage and Honor movie, Preston Michaels (Richard Norton), who has fled the crime-infected LAPD and is working as a bartender. Together they're up against a bunch of killer diamond racketeers. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, (more)
- 1993
Danny Shaffer (Jim Metzler) used to be a poet. He's settled down now, and is a regular businessman living in L.A. His girlfriend has recently split with him to move to Berlin. Apparently, she wanted him to come with her, because she has sent two German emissaries, Barbara and Ingrid, to bring videotaped messages from her and see to it that he watches them. There are plenty of suggestions that sexual intimacies might be forthcoming from the unexpected visitors, but nothing transpires along those lines. Despite the unpromising storyline, reviewers found this festival film well enough made to hold their attention. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Metzler, Anna Katarina, (more)
In Rage and Honor, Cynthia Rothrock is featured as a full-time high-school teacher/part-time karate instructor who's out to protect one of her students who innocently witnesses and films a mob drug transaction. He's caught and beaten but keeps the film from the bad guys. Finding and helping him is an Australian foreign-exchange cop who also gets involved in the fracas when he's set up for a murder by some cop cohorts who've gone bad. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, (more)
This black comedy chronicles the fall of one of the world's most unlovable clowns as he plies his trade and tries to survive in Palukaville a town where everyone is more or less a Bozo. Shakes loves women and more than that, he loves his booze. Like many of his painted peers, ol' Shakes likes to hang out at The Twisted Balloon, the favorite local pub where he hoists a few, beats up on mimes (the lowest caste in Palukaville) and causes trouble with his girl friend Judy, a woman who cannot say the letter "L." Because the slovenly Shakes can't seem to make it to birthday parties sober and on time, he is fired from his booking agency, causing him to go on a big drinking binge. Later, Shakes awakens and learns that Binky, a lousy TV-clown, is framing him for beating up Shake's former boss with a juggling pin. Now poor Shakes must clear his name. He must also rescue "Juwee" who has been kidnapped by the nefarious Binky, and he must come to grips with his alcohol problem (perhaps the film could be therefore titled "Clown and Sober?"). Keep an eye peeled for cameos by Robin Williams, as a mime instructor, and Florence Henderson as one of Shake's illicit sexual conquests. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, (more)
Carl Franklin made his directorial bow with the story of three LA drug dealers who, after committing a rather messy murder, hide out in a rural Arkansas town. Assuming that the local "rubes" will offer them little interference, the criminals have not reckoned with sheriff "Hurricane" Dixon (Bill Paxton). Despite the arrogance of the LAPD agents sent to Arkansas to collar the crooks, it is down-home Dixon who puts the final bloody showdown into motion (the fact that the thieves have been falling out throughout the film doesn't hurt things either). Carl Franklin knows where he's going in every frenetic frame of One False Move, and his movie was one of the most acclaimed independent releases of 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, (more)
Set the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, December focuses on five prep-school students (Wil Wheaton, Balthazar Getty, Brian Krause, Jason London and Chris Young) who are of enlistment age. Though encouraged by their headmaster to enter the army, the boys are wary of battle, and discuss the pros and cons of the situation. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Balthazar Getty, Jason London, (more)
- 1990
- R
Set in a grim post-WW III America, this sci-fi fantasy tells the story of a woman attempting to sell black-market computer chips that allow patrons to experience the nearly forgotten pleasures of sex and drugs. She is hanging out with the gang she works for in a local nightclub when the police raid the joint. She manages to escape and decides to double cross her gang and sell the chips for herself. But first she must escape both the police and the gangsters and make it to the New York underground. She is helped out when she runs into Plughead, an android covered with electrical outlets. He uses these to tap in to the fantasies of other people. The soundtrack by Deborah Holland provides a highlight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Metzler, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, (more)
- 1989
- R
Peter Berg stars as Henry, a chronic gambler forever in trouble with the mob and the law. Through the auspices of his old friend Cowboy Jack (M.K. Harris), Henry is hired as an all-around flunkey by gang boss Paul Hellwart (Terence Stamp). But there's a problem: Henry is currently sexually involved with a nubile young miss (Michelle Johnson) who happens to be Hellwart's main squeeze. Disloyalty begets violence, and violence begets more violence. Anyone looking for logical character development and clever plot twists will be disappointed by Genuine Risk, though action fans will get their fill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terence Stamp, Peter Berg, (more)
- 1989
- R
In this comedy, the members of the Shakers, an aspiring rock band, perform at a series of weird and wacky weddings. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Katt, Joyce Hyser, (more)
