Browse Movies : 2003 : R : Crime

On the afternoon of July 1, 1981, Los Angeles police responded to a distress call at 8763 Wonderland Avenue and soon discovered a grisly quadruple homicide, later compared to the gruesome slaughter at the Tate household at the hands of the Charles Manson family 10 years earlier. Ron Launius (Josh Lucas), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo) were brutally murdered, and Ron's wife Susan (Christina Applegate) was left in critical condition. The police investigation that followed - led by detectives Sam Nico (Ted Levine), Louis Cruz (Frankie G.) and Mike Peters (M.C. Gainey) - would unearth a seedy world of drugs and violence, ultimately revealing a motley crew from LA's underbelly including ex-con David Lind (Dylan McDermott), nightclub impresario Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian), the most unlikely of American heroes - porn legend John Holmes (Val Kilmer) - Holmes' estranged wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow) and his teenage lover Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth).

Claire (Ayanna), a goal-oriented Columbia University graduate student, meets Jack (Brody). At once unimpressed and intrigued by his bad-boy persona, Claire eventually agrees to meet him. Attraction quickly turns into infatuation and love. Jack runs a regular scam conning foreign businessmen with his partner Charlie (Seda) and two struggling actresses. Though charmed by Claire's acute intellect, he pushes her away, just like he has with previous partners. Abandoned and traumatized, Claire begins to neglect her studies and throws herself into a self-destructive downward spiral. As Detective Linda Fox's (Grier) efforts to expose Jack and Charlie's scam intensifies, the once self-assured Jack finds his world crumbling.

Set in the New York nightclub scene of the late 1980's and 1990's, this is the story of Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin), a Club Kid party organizer originally from Indiana, whose extravagant life was sent spiralling downward when he boasted on television that he had killed his drug dealer and roommate, Angel Melendez (Wilson Cruz).

Set in the LAPD in April 1992, it takes place just days before the acquittal of four white officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King and the subsequent LA riots. In this racially charged climate, the LAPD's elite Special Investigations Squad (SIS) is assigned a high-profile quadruple homicide. As they work the case, veteran detective Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) tutors rookie Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman) in the grim realities of police intimidation and corruption. Meanwhile, Assistant Chief Holland (Ving Rhames), the only man in the department willing to stand up to the SIS, threatens to end Perry's brand of single-handed "justice" on the LA streets. While navigating through tumultuous neighborhoods of South Central LA, Perry and Keough must track down killers and face their own demons.

The third installment in Robert Rodriguez's trilogy that began with 1992's "El Mariachi" and continued with 1995's "Desperado", the latter of which also starred Antonio Banderas. El Mariachi makes his way across a rugged landscape on the blood trail of Barrillo (Willem Dafoe), a cartel kingpin with one last score to settle who is planning a coup d'etat against the president of Mexico. Enlisted by Sands (Johnny Depp), a corrupt CIA agent, El Mariachi demands retribution, and the adventure begins against a backdrop of revolution, greed, and revenge.

A three-day drug adventure awaits the speed junkies in "Spun". Jason Schwartzman ("Rushmore") stars as a young speed addict who embarks on an adventure with his dealer, played by John Leguizamo, and the drug chemist, played by Mickey Rourke. Patrick Fugit ("Almost Famous") plays a fellow speed addict, while Brittany Murphy and Mena Suvari play girlfriends of the drug dealers.

Uma Thurman's character, a pregnant assassin named the Bride, is shot by her boss, Bill, and her co-workers at her wedding (the wedding guests are also shot). She survives, though, waking up exceedingly angry after a five-year coma, and decides to hunt down and kill every single one of the assassins who were responsible, saving Bill for last.

Follows young Lilya, who moves to Sweden from the Soviet Union with her boyfriend after her mother leaves for America. Once she gets there, she finds nothing but deceit, betrayal, and violence.

At a deserted train station, a teacher and a gangster meet and realize that each might have been better suited to the other man's way of life. As a friendship of sorts develops between these opposite personalities, each starts to envy the other and by the week's end, everything will change for both of them.

Vin Diesel stars as Agent Sean Vetter, a DEA operative fighting the drug wars along the US/Mexican border. After a major player from the Baja Cartel is imprisoned, a new mysterious figure known as Diablo wrests control over the entire operation. But when Vetter's wife is murdered in a botched hit, he and his partner (Larenz Tate) must join forces with the jailed Cartel boss to hunt down the dangerous and elusive new player.

Ben is an overachieving high-school student in Orange County, Calif. He's at the top of his class and set to matriculate at an Ivy League school. But Ben has a darker side. While he maintains academic success, to alleviate the pressure put upon him by his parents, he indulges in acts of crime. His life slowly begins to spin out of control and he eventually joins a gang.

Set on an American Army Base in 1989, as the Berlin Wall is about to fall, "Buffalo Soldiers" takes a satiric look as these men steal, drink, fight, and make, take, and sell drugs. Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is the brains behind the operation, easily duping his superior (Ed Harris) and sleeping with his wife (Elizabeth McGovern). But with the arrival of the new Sergeant (Scott Glenn), everything changes. The Sergeant cracks down; Elwood retaliates by dating his daughter (Anna Paquin) and attempting a big "weapons for drugs" deal, with the Sergeant in closer pursuit.

The main character in Cidade de Deus is not a person. It is a place. Cidade de Deus is a poor housing project started in the 60's that became one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro by the beginning of the 80's. In order to tell the story of the place the film tells us the stories of many characters. But all is seen through the eyes of the narrator: Busca-Pi, a poor black kid too frail and scared to become an outlaw but also to smart to be content with an underpaid job. He grows up in a very violent environment. The odds are all against him. But he discovers he can see the reality with a different eye: the eye of an artist. Eventually he becomes a professional photographer. That is his redemption... Buscapi is not the real protagonist of the film. He is not the one who makes the story moves on [sic]. He is not the one who makes the decisions that will determine the main chain of events. Nevertheless, not only his life is attached to what happens in the story but it is also through his perspective of life that we understand the humanity of a world apparently condemned to endless violence.

Women prisoners strike up a friendship with a young law student who works as a part-time prison guard. Together they discover that a corporation funds and is profitting from the plantation-like work environment they are forced to work under. In a botched attempt to organize a protest against their "slave labor", the women take over the prison - A rare glimpse of the effects of the prison industrial complex on female inmates.

Following in the long tradition of heist films, "Confidence" tells the story of con man Jake Vig (Ed Burns), who gets a few thousand dollars from a victim who is actually a powerful crime mogul's accountant with the help of his friends. When the mob boss, appropriately named "Boss" (Dustin Hoffman), finds out, Jake and his pals have to cut a deal to pay him back.

When an international criminal (Mark Dacascos) kidnaps the daughter of a gang leader (DMX) and demands extremely rare "black diamonds" in exchange for her safety, it forces the gangster to align with a Taiwanese Intelligence Agent (Jet Li) to find and procure the jewels... even as they discover that the bad guy wants them so that he can build a dangerous new weapon that could jeopardize the entire world.

This movie tells two stories in three settings, going back and forth between each story as the film proceeds. One is the story of two cowboy brothers (Joseph Fiennes, David Wenham) who worked as mercenaries in Turkey around the turn of the century, and fall in love with the same woman (Anne Brochet). The other is set in contemporary New York, and is about a 90-year-old woman with a secret horde of Balkan gold and a thief (Adrian Lester), who surprisingly become friends. The third setting is the Ottoman Empire, circa 1913.

"Gigli", is a new romantic gangster comedy from director Martin Brest, ("Scent of a Woman", "Midnight Run", "Beverly Hills Cop") about a lowly thug who lets love get in the way of a high-risk mob assignment. Gigli (Ben Affleck) is ordered to kidnap the psychologically challenged younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor. When plans go awry, Gigli's boss sends in Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), a gorgeous, free-spirited female gangster who has her own set of orders to assist with the kidnapping. But Gigli begins falling for the decidedly unavailable Ricki, which could be a hazard to his occupation.

While doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager on Turk Street, Jack (Jackson) stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery. Jack finds himself being held hostage while the criminals decide what to do with him, and the leader's beautiful girlfriend, Erin (Jovovich), is left alone to watch Jack. Erin, who is a master manipulator of the men in the gang, reveals another side to Jack - a melancholy romantic who could have been a classical pianist. She finds Jack's captivity an irresistible turn-on and he can't figure out if she's for real, or manipulating him, too. Before the gang returns, Jack and Erin's connection intensifies...

Takeshi Kaneshiro stars in this thriller as Miyamoto, an assassin who accidentally wounds a young woman during a shoot out. When Miyamoto goes to help her, she tells him that she has been sent from the future to prevent an alien invasion that will occur in 72 hours. She informs him that because he has injured her, he must now help her carry out her mission or else be responsible for the destruction of humanity.