Bovie Movie

A recently widowed eccentric with money to burn and no intentions of settling down enlists the aide of a showbiz professional to transform a run-down theater in Soho into London’s most innovative entertainment hot spot in director Stephen Frears’ cinematic account of the groundbreaking Windmill Theater. The year is 1937 and, despite having recently lost her husband, 69-year-old Laura Henderson (Judy Dench) remains as ambitious and vital as ever. Aghast at her friend Lady Conway’s (Thelma Barlow) suggestion that she take up a mundane hobby such as diamond collecting to pass the time, Mrs. Henderson instead shocks her well-to-do social circle by purchasing the ramshackle Windmill Theater in the heart of downtown Soho. Unafraid to take a risk in the venture, yet lacking the experience needed to run the theater, Mrs. Henderson brings in showbiz veteran Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to line up an opening act that will set the stage ablaze. When the ever-curious Mrs. Henderson’s intrusive spying begins to impede on Mr. Van Damm’s creative progress, the frustrated theater manager has her banished from rehearsals. Though Van Damm’s innovative idea to stage an unending stream of entertainment dubbed “Revudeville” proves a wild and profitable success, the Windmill begins to suffer when other local theaters quickly follow suit. Now faced with the prospect of seeing her once-lucrative endeavor fall by the wayside due to the unoriginality of the copycats who surround her, Mrs. Henderson decides to show audiences something they’ve never seen before by making the Windmill the first theater to feature nude female entertainers live on-stage.

In this military courtroom drama based on the play by Aaron Sorkin, Navy lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is assigned to defend two Marines, Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall) and Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison), who are accused of the murder of fellow leatherneck Pfc. William Santiago (Michael de Lorenzo) at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Kaffee generally plea bargains for his clients rather than bring them to trial, which is probably why he was assigned this potentially embarassing case, but when Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) is assigned to assist Kaffee, she is convinced that there’s more to the matter than they’ve been led to believe and convinces her colleague that the case should go to court. Under questioning, Downey and Dawson reveal that Santiago died in the midst of a hazing ritual known as “Code Red” after he threatened to inform higher authorities that Dawson opened fire on a Cuban watchtower. They also state that the “Code Red” was performed under the orders of Lt. Jonathan Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland). Kendrick’s superior, tough-as-nails Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), denies any knowledge of the order to torture Santiago, but when Lt. Col. Matthew Markinson (J.T. Walsh) confides to Kaffee that Jessup demanded the “Code Red” for violating his order of silence, Kaffee and Galloway have to find a way to prove this in court. A Few Good Men also features Kevin Bacon as prosecuting attorney Capt. Jack Ross and Kevin Pollak as Kaffee and Galloway’s research assistant, Lt. Sam Weinberg.