Bovie Movie

Veteran screen star Tommy Lee Jones makes his directorial debut with the fractured tale of murder and injustice on the U.S.-Mexico border scripted by Amores perros and 21 Grams screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) is a fresh-faced Border Patrol officer in Cibolo County, Texas whose dedication to his new job leaves his lonely wife Lou Ann (January Jones) with little to do but spend her days at the local diner, where she strikes up a friendship with waitress Rachel (Melissa Leo). Despite her own status as a married woman, Rachel is unfulfilled in her marriage and is intimately involved with both rugged rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and local Sherrif Belmont (Dwight Yoakam). Soon after Pete hires Mexican illegal Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) as a ranch hand, the growing bond between the pair is suddenly shattered when, in a moment of panic on a routine patrol, Mike hastily guns down the innocent Melquaides. When an enraged Pete learns that Mike had unceremoniously buried the illegal immigrant in an unmarked desert grave and local authorities opt to overlook the case, he kidnaps the crooked lawman and sets out to ensure that justice is served with or without the involvement of the local police force.

A true story of tragedy, hope, and resilience comes to the screen in this sports drama. Huntington, WV, is home to Marshall University, a school where college football is a way of life. Huntington is also a town that learned to deal with tragedy in the fall of 1970 when Marshall’s “Thundering Herd” boarded an airliner to return home after a football game in North Carolina. The jet crashed into a hill due to bad weather, and 75 members of Marshall’s football squad and athletic staff died that night. The accident dealt a crippling blow to the city of Huntington, as well as Marshall’s faculty and student body, and university president Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) considered abandoning the school’s football program. But instead Coach Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) was recruited from Ohio’s College of Wooster to rebuild Marshall’s football program. Lengyel was not naïve about the task ahead of him, and working beside Red Dawson (Matthew Fox), an assistant coach who narrowly missed the doomed flight and was one of the program’s only survivors, he came to understand his job was not just to put a team on the field, but help a college and a community heal their wounds from the tragic accident. Together Lengyel and Dawson turned a handful of rookies and second-string players into a competitive team who in 1971 showed the world what they could do in a legendary game against Marshall’s rivals, Xavier University. Produced with the cooperation of Marshall University and filmed in part on their campus, We Are Marshall also stars Ian McShane, Anthony Mackie, and January Jones.

Director Barry Levinson follows up the low-budget An Everlasting Piece (2000) with another comedy, this one of the homegrown variety from former Twin Peaks (1990) TV series writer Harley Peyton. Bruce Willis stars as suave bank robber Joe, who has escaped from prison with his hypochondriac buddy Terry (Billy Bob Thornton). Together, the two men have devised a clever scheme to take a bank officer hostage the night before a heist, then simply escort the executive to work early the next morning when they clean out the vault. Their ingenious methods have led to the men becoming media darlings dubbed “the Sleepover Bandits,” but all Joe and Terry want is to make a nice pile of money before crossing the Mexican border to a life of freedom and legitimacy. Their quest gets more complicated when Terry is struck by a car driven by Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett), a bored housewife who’s then forced to join their crime spree. Soon both Joe and Terry are in love with Kate and she with them, realizing that the two friends put together pretty much equal the perfect man. Bandits co-stars Troy Garity, son of actress Jane Fonda.

Not a sequel, not really a prequel, sort of a remake, more of a re-imagining, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights follows the blossoming love affair of young couple Katey (Romola Garai) and Javier (Diego Luna) against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution in 1958. Katey is an American girl living in Cuba with her parents who meets Javier, a local. Javier takes Katey to a nightclub where he teaches her how to dance dirty Cuban-style. The two grow closer and closer, but when Castro takes over, Katey’s parents decide to flee for the U.S., leaving Katey to make the ultimate decision. Tying the film together with the classic 1987 original is Patrick Swayze who reprises the role of Johnny Castle in a cameo.