Ron Shelton

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

Stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith return along with director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer for this sequel to the 1995 sleeper hit Bad Boys, the film that sparked the careers of both actors, as well as Bay. Once again, Lawrence and Smith play hotshot, wisecracking Miami narcotics officers Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. This time around, Burnett and Lowrey have been assigned to head up a task force to investigate the illegal trafficking of ecstasy into the city. They discover that an underground gang war has been instigated by drug kingpin Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla). In order to cut off the flow of the designer drug, they have to take down Tapia. Unfortunately, there's a wrench thrown into the gears in the form of Burnett's sister Syd, whom Lowrey takes a liking to and begins a relationship with. Tensions rise between the partners, threatening both their friendship and the investigation and putting Syd in harm's way. Also returning from the first film are Joe Pantoliano as Captain Howard, Theresa Randle as Burnett's wife Theresa, and former-NBA star John Salley as 'Hacker' Fletcher. Among the supporting players new to this entry in the series are Peter Stormare and musician, spoken-word artist, and sometimes-actor Henry Rollins. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The doors are opened on a group of misfits living in a seedy motel on the edge of Los Angeles in the comedy No Vacancy. At the run-down Pink Motel, the owner (Joaquim de Almeida) is furious with his daughter when he finds out she's been sleeping with her boyfriend. This doesn't make her very different from most of the people staying at his establishment, where attractive young women wake up with men they don't recall meeting, sleazy guys cavort with hookers, and most of the tenants are ready to clobber each other. The cast includes Christina Ricci, Lolita Davidovich, Gabriel Mann, Steven Schub and Robert Wagner. No Vacancy was screened at the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is a talented golf pro, who owns his own driving range. That sounds impressive, but the reality is quite different. While it's true that Roy is indeed a talented golfer and does own a driving range, it is in a tiny, unheard of Texas backwater. With almost no customers, he is likely to go broke. His golfing talents remain untapped and his life is rapidly going nowhere. To pass the time, he drinks a lot of beer with his buddies, or swings at a bucket of balls. Sometimes, he even plays real golf, and his friend and assistant Romeo (Cheech Marin) caddies for him. That's all there is for Roy, until he is wakened from his deathlike reverie by a visit from a newcomer in town, psychologist Molly Griswold (Renee Russo). Teaching her how to swing a club reminds him of feelings he had nearly forgotten. Discovering that she is the girlfriend of his old golfing rival, David Simms (Don Johnson), goads him yet further, and he returns to the PGA golf tour to compete in the U.S. Open. Maybe he'll get Molly for himself, maybe not, but in the meantime he has some things to prove to himself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Big business dealings, competition, and TV ratings wars are satirized in this biting comedy. Stuart Sain is an egotistical, over-ambitious Jewish executive. He works for Fielding, a company like Nielsen which uses small boxes to garner TV ratings statistics. Stuart is married to Cary, a psychologist. In the opening scenes, the GPN, which has been number 1 for over 10 years, is opening it's new season of drug oriented TV shows. After watching a televised special about Fielding, Sain gets mad and his promotion prospects are grim. He leaves his company and accepts a public relations position from Rachel Rowen, the pc head of PBT, the public television network. Rachel, like her commercial competitors is totally obsessed with being number 1. Her network does seem to be garnering a huge share of Fielding ratings. That may have something to do with the fact that their boxes are malfunctioning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Blue Chips examines greed, cheating, and "winning at all costs" in the world of college basketball. Nick Nolte plays the stressed-out coach on the verge of his first losing season, who hits the road in search of new players not already signed by a bigger school. He finds three prospects: a precision Chicago shooter (Anfernee Hardaway), a giant farmboy (Matt Nover), and a talented troublemaker (Shaquille O'Neal). All three, wise to the ways of college basketball recruitment, make excessive financial and lifestyle demands before they can be persuaded to come to the school; the coach, already haunted by accusations of underhanded dealings, doesn't want to dig himself a deeper hole but has no choice. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Blaze is a comic-strip re-telling of the curious late-1950s relationship between famed striptease artist Blaze Starr (Lolita Davidovitch) and Lousiana governor Earl Long (played in gorgeously flamboyant fashion by Paul Newman). Their romance is counterbalanced with the story of Long's efforts to win voting rights for Louisiana's black citizens. The governor's political enemies ruin his chances at re-election, then try to put him out of the way permanently with a trumped-up insanity charge. But with faithful Blaze at his side (and in close proximity to other portions of his anatomy), Long confounds his foes by winning a congressional seat. On the eve of this triumph, Earl Long dies, bringing this boisterous story to a sobering conclusion. Since the film is based on Blaze Starr's own reminiscences, one might prepare oneself with several grains of salt. The real Blaze Starr shows up early in the film as a stripper named Lily. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Buck McGriff (Willem Dafoe) and Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines) are military police from the army's Criminal Investigation Department assigned to find a serial killer in 1968 war-torn Saigon. Hookers have been ritualistically murdered, and the two cops spend their final days of active duty in the sleazy back alleys of Saigon tracking down the killer in this military mystery. One by one, possible witnesses who can shed light on the case are systematically murdered. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This gripping, emotional story of a roving photographer's transformation from a neutral artist with a camera to an involved human rights activist with a camera begins in Chad, travels to Nicaragua in the early 1980s, and ends when the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza takes off for the palm trees and beaches of Florida. Nick Nolte brilliantly interprets his role as the photographer Russell Price, and Joanna Cassidy is Claire, the radio journalist he meets while in Chad, along with her lover, Time Magazine reporter Alex (Gene Hackman), who ends up opting for a plush job as a TV anchorman and a quiet life on Long Island. When Alex leaves, Claire heads off to the next hot spot, Nicaragua, and Russell decides to tag along -- not because he is that interested in Nicaragua, but because he is interested in Claire. Once in the war-torn, Central American country, it does not take Russell long to see the vast difference between the corrupt, U.S.-backed dictatorship and the struggling guerrilla forces who have been fighting for a decade already. As his eyes are opened, he and Claire decide to go along with the rebels and film their fighting behind the lines. During one battle, the much-venerated rebel leader is shot dead, and Russell reluctantly agrees to fake a photo of the man as though he were still living, so as not to demoralize the army that looks up to him for leadership. The photo appears in the news around the world and causes such a furor that Alex shows up to demand an interview with the leader for national American television. It is on the way to this supposed interview that Alex leaves the car for a moment and is senselessly shot and killed by a government soldier, the whole episode filmed for the world by Russell's camera. This outrage (which actually occurred when journalist Bill Stewart was inhumanly shot by a Somoza soldier in full view of the video camera) soon makes global news and helps to hasten the overthrow of the corrupt dictatorship. Meanwhile, Russell has new issues to consider once his camera has become an "active" and not a "passive" observer of political unrest. René Enriquéz who plays the dictator Somoza in this film is a native Nicaraguan, related to a newspaper reporter killed by Somoza's government. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide