Browse Movies : Completed : 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).

From the Mexican writing-directing team behind the Oscar-nominated "Amores Perros" comes this explosive, emotionally charged English-language drama about a woman (Naomi Watts), her cheating lover (Sean Penn), and an ex-convict (Benicio Del Toro).

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).

When sex and greed mix with cops and criminals, things get messy in this Guy Pearce crime comedy, directed by Scott Roberts.

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.

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...

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.

Steve James's new film takes a deeply personal turn as he returns to the town where 10 years earlier he was a "big brother" to a troubled young boy named Stevie. As he resumes his connection with this emotionally and socially challenged man after so many years, we get a glimpse into the difficulties Stevie faced as a product of his environment. Abandoned by his mother at a young age, he bounced from foster home to foster home, abused and neglected. He soon found his way into trouble with the law, which complicated his strained relationships with what little family he had.

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.

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.

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.

Based on a true story, this is about the Irish journalist Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett), a reporter for the Dublin Sunday Independent, who exposed some of Dublin's most powerful crime barons and drug lords in 1996. But later that year she was gunned down by assasins hired by the same criminal drug lords she exposed.

This is the story of two criminals who disguise themselves as Santa Claus (Billy Bob Thornton) and his elf, traveling across the country to major malls, using the good will people have towards Santa to rob the stores blind. The plan is going great until the two baddies meet an introverted 8-year-old boy who reminds them of the true meaning of Christmas.

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.

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.

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...

Dek and Shirley live together with 12 year-old Marlene, her daughter by the sexy, delinquent Jimmy who went off into the badlands of Glasgow years ago and hasn't been heard from since. Decent-but-dull Dek loves Shirley so much that he humiliates her by proposing without warning on national television. Like everyone else Shirley has ever met, Jimmy is watching when she turns Dek down on TV and he returns to town, determined to win her back. Shirley seems destined to succumb to Jimmy's charms, but he hasn't reckoned on the obstacles: their daughter Marlene, his sister Carol, her estranged husband Charlie, their sons Emerson and Lake, Carol's daughter Donna, her boyfriend Donut. Nor could he anticipate the heroic, last-minute challenge from mild-mannered, love-sick Dek.