Browse Movies : 2003 : Crime

Based on Louis Sachar's popular children's book. It's about a young boy who is punished for a crime he didn't commit and is sent to a juvenile detention center where he is forced to dig holes under the watchful eye of a mean-spirited warden.

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.

This documentary captures what happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12th, 2000 when Bus 174 was highjacked by an armed young man, Sandro do Nascimento, with a dozen passengers. Nascimento threatened to kill all of the passengers, but eventuallly agreed to surrender, as TV cameras were rolling and an entire nation was glued to their screens watching the event take place. Then, a police officer decided to fire at Nascimento anyway, accidentally killing one of the female passengers instead. What followed was a revolt among the city's population, enraged at police brutality. The film intertwines the story of the standoff with biographical information about Sandro do Nascimento, including his childhood as a survivor of the "Candelaria" child mass murders in the early 1990s, and the trauma of seeing his mother stabbed to death in front of him.

When a lonely guy (Steve Martin) meets a woman (Queen Latifah) on the Internet who happens to be in prison, she breaks out to be with him, and quickly proceeds to bring chaos and some much-needed change into his middle-class life...

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.

When the police chief (Denzel Washington) of a small Florida town "borrows" money from the evidence room so he can run away with a woman (Sanaa Lathan) he's always been in love with, she quickly betrays him, revealing that she only began having an affair with him as a way to seek revenge... Now, with his reputation and career on the line, an otherwise good cop must resolve his life before he runs... "Out of Time".

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.

Combines the worlds of law enforcement and the music industry. It pairs a young cop and older cop, both of whom moonlight in other jobs -- acting and real estate -- who get themselves involved in a crime within the music business. Washington will play Sartain, a feared rap impresario who in the past has arranged the murder of several rappers who wanted out of their contract. He also is working in tandem with a former LAPD officer who is now the head of security for Sartain's music company.

In the explosive action-thriller "S.W.A.T." starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell, and inspired by the '70s television series, Farrell portrays Jim Street, an L.A.P.D. officer whose recent demotion to a desk job leaves him desperate for a second chance to don the elite S.W.A.T. uniform. That break comes when team commander Hondo (Samuel L. Jackson) is assigned to recruit and train five top-notch officers for a new Special Weapons and Tactics unit (S.W.A.T.).

Three individual employees (Paulo Costanzo, Woody Harrelson, Alicia Silverstone) of a bank in a small desert town (managed by Joshua Leonard) all make plans to rob it on the same weekend... except, none of them knows about the others. Meanwhile, a clothing store employee (Rachael Leigh Cook) has plans for revenge against a local millionaire (John Cleese).

A band of thieves, led by Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), pulls off the ultimate heist by rigging the stoplights of the city of Los Angeles so that they can drive right out of the city with a carful of gold (in a safe that they're stealing back after Croker's double-crossing ex-partner, played by Edward Norton, stole it from Croker first), with nothing but greenlights, while everyone else gets redlights, thus keeping the roads plugged with the largest traffic jam in L.A. history, and the police from pursuing them. Aiding their escape is the fact that the bandits are driving BMW Mini Coopers (tiny cars), so they're able to use sidewalks and the subway system in addition to L.A.'s streets and highways. That, of course, is how it's *supposed* to work...

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).

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.

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.

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).

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.

Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is the unluckiest man in Las Vegas... he's so unlucky, it's contagious. Looking to knock out their highest rollers, one of the last mob-run casinos in town, the Shangri-La Hotel and Casino downtown, decides to use Bernie as a "cooler" to defuse their lucky streaks. The scheme goes fine until Bernie falls in love with a cocktail waitress, Natalie (Maria Bello), who becomes his "lady luck", much to the chagrin of the casino's crooked director (Alec Baldwin) who aims to break up the romance, and Bernie's newfound luck...

"This Thing of Ours" tells a true to life crime story of a 21st century breed of gangsters who steal hundreds of millions from the world's banks. Though a highly sophisticated computer internet and satellite system the gang manages to pull off the biggest heist in the vast and violent history of the American mafia.

Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), stripped of his badge after the events of the first film, gets a chance to redeem himself by going undercover to infiltrate the world of Miami street racing.