Bovie Movie

A magazine article about real-life car racing gangs for Vibe becomes this fast-paced automotive thriller from director Rob Cohen. Paul Walker stars as Brian O’Conner, a youthful FBI agent investigating a series of hijackings by going undercover with a street gang led by charismatic Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Caught up in Toretto’s world of gang conflict that is resolved in late-night car races, Spindler starts to sympathize with his chief suspect and falls in love with Toretto’s younger sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). In the meantime, Spindler initially suspects the wrong gang of complicity in the crimes he’s probing, while Toretto remains involved in a forbidden romance, à la Romeo and Juliet, with his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). The Fast and the Furious co-stars Ted Levine, Rick Yune, and Matt Schulze.

Despite the use in this film of voices dubbed by greats of English theater, the casting of long-haired cats to play the roles of Romeo and Juliet seems somewhat perverse. Nonetheless, the lines are well read, and the movie contains some fine original musical compositions. Among the voices: Maggie Smith, Ben Kingsley, Vanessa Redgrave, and John Hurt.

Stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith return along with director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer for this sequel to the 1995 sleeper hit Bad Boys, the film that sparked the careers of both actors, as well as Bay. Once again, Lawrence and Smith play hotshot, wisecracking Miami narcotics officers Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. This time around, Burnett and Lowrey have been assigned to head up a task force to investigate the illegal trafficking of ecstasy into the city. They discover that an underground gang war has been instigated by drug kingpin Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla). In order to cut off the flow of the designer drug, they have to take down Tapia. Unfortunately, there’s a wrench thrown into the gears in the form of Burnett’s sister Syd, whom Lowrey takes a liking to and begins a relationship with. Tensions rise between the partners, threatening both their friendship and the investigation and putting Syd in harm’s way. Also returning from the first film are Joe Pantoliano as Captain Howard, Theresa Randle as Burnett’s wife Theresa, and former-NBA star John Salley as ‘Hacker’ Fletcher. Among the supporting players new to this entry in the series are Peter Stormare and musician, spoken-word artist, and sometimes-actor Henry Rollins.

Robert DeNiro continues to lampoon his tough-guy persona with this spoof of buddy cop movies that teams him with comic co-star Eddie Murphy. DeNiro is L.A.P.D. detective Mitch Preston, a gruff, no-nonsense 28-year veteran whose bust of a drug gang is botched one night by Trey Sellars (Murphy), a bumbling patrolman who’s really a frustrated actor at heart. When Mitch’s aggravation is captured by a television news crew, he fires his gun in their direction and becomes an instant media celebrity, while earning himself a temporary suspension at work. After his fame draws the attention of network TV producer Chase Renzi (Rene Russo), Mitch is soon informed that the only way he can get back to work is to allow a production crew to trail him on the job for a new cop reality series called “Showtime”. In order to make the taciturn lawman more palatable to the viewing public, he’s paired with the camera-friendly, fast-talking Trey. The new partners drive each other crazy, but their mismatched sensibilities make for great TV, while their newfound fame has its advantages in getting them back on the trail of those escaped drug dealers, who possess a powerful new weapon. Showtime co-stars Frankie Faison and William Shatner, who sends up his own TV cop role in T.J. Hooker.

Two cops with almost nothing in common find themselves brought together to capture a psychotic murderer in this action thriller. Jack Cole (Steven Seagal) was once a government intelligence operative known as “The Glimmer Man,” because he could move so quickly and quietly that his victims would only see a glimmer before they died. Having left international espionage behind him, Cole — steeped in Eastern mysticism and not used to working with others — has become a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, where he’s paired up with Jim Campbell (Keenen Ivory Wayans), a tough, no-nonsense cop with a weakness for weepy movies (Casablanca is one of his favorites) and little patience for Cole’s New Age philosophies and outsider attitude. Cole and Campbell have to set aside their differences when they’re assigned to track down a serial killer the press has dubbed “The Family Man,” for his habit of dispatching entire households at once. However, when the Family Man’s latest victims turn out to be Cole’s former wife and her current husband, Campbell learns about Cole’s secret past, and they both think that Cole’s former bosses may somehow be involved with this current crime wave. Leading man Seagal also wrote and played guitar on several blues-based songs that appear on the film’s soundtrack.

The three most glamorous and butt-kicking private detectives in the business are back and ready to take on bad guys in this sequel to the 2000 blockbuster screen adaptation of the once-popular television series. Dylan (Drew Barrymore), Natalie (Cameron Diaz), and Alex (Lucy Liu) are once again summoned to the office of their boss Charlie (voice of John Forsythe), where they’re introduced to his new right-hand man Jimmy Bosley (Bernie Mac) and given their latest assignment. It seems a pair of rings have gone missing and need to be recovered, but this was no ordinary jewel heist — the rings have been coded with special information that can be used to access a list of every person in the FBI’s Witness Protection Program, and when a handful of protected informants are murdered, the Angels are brought in to help crack the case. As the women search for the culprits, they encounter Madison Lee (Demi Moore), one of Charlie’s former agents who decided that the wrong side of the law pays better, and Seamus (Justin Theroux), who once dated Dylan and wants revenge for her decision to turn him over to the police. Luke Wilson and Matt LeBlanc return as (respectively) Natalie and Alex’s love interests, as does Crispin Glover as the Thin Man; John Cleese, Robert Forster, and Eric Bogosian also appear in supporting roles.

Undercover Brother began life as an animated series on the Internet. The satirical cartoon was created by novelist and screenwriter John Ridley (Three Kings) for the website urbanentertainment.com. Ridley wrote the screenplay with Michael McCullers, co-writer of the Austin Powers sequels, and it was directed by Malcolm D. Lee (Spike Lee’s cousin, and the writer/director of The Best Man). The film stars Eddie Griffin (of TV’s Malcolm and Eddie) as Undercover Brother, he of the gold Cadillac convertible and huge Afro, who uses gadgets and disguises to steal from the rich and give to the poor. His activities are discovered by the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., a spy organization devoted to subverting The Man (Robert Trumbull) and his henchman, Mr. Feather (Chris Kattan), who use their power over the media to demean black people and destroy racial unity. The spy organization is run by The Chief (Chi McBride), who is constantly screaming at his subordinates. They include Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis), a beautiful martial artist, Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle), who sees white supremacist plots everywhere, and Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams, who provided the voice of Undercover Brother in the cartoon), who supplies the operatives with gadgets and information. When a popular black political figure, General Boutwell (Billy Dee Williams), calls a press conference, presumably to announce his presidential candidacy, and instead announces that he’s opening a chain of fried chicken restaurants, the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. rightly suspects foul play, and recruits Undercover Brother to look into it. He goes undercover as an uptight buppie to work for The Man, but his cover is soon blown, and the seductive White She Devil (Denise Richards) is sent in to use her feminine wiles to destroy Undercover Brother.

This action thriller co-written by filmmaker Luc Besson stars Jet Li as Liu Jian, a Chinese intelligence officer in Paris on an assignment that finds him in the midst of an international conspiracy. When Liu’s investigation gets too close to uncovering the truth, his life is seriously jeopardized and he’s forced to creatively employ his martial arts skills, which includes using a pool ball and the French flag as defensive props. In the meantime, romantic sparks fly between Liu and a sexy witness (Bridget Fonda), while the agent discovers that a trusted French peer (longtime Besson featured player Tcheky Karyo) is actually the double-crossing criminal mastermind he’s seeking.

Death lurks, and two teenage girls try to figure out where he’s heading, in this sequel to the unexpected teen horror hit Final Destination. As Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the only surviving passenger of the ill-fated Flight 180, waits in a mental institution, certain Death will claim her, Kim (A.J. Cook), who has begun to display precognitive powers, is driving along the highway when she sees a terrible accident in which several cars crash into a logging truck. Moments later, the horrible vision is gone, but Kim is certain she saw an accident that was supposed to happen but didn’t…and now Death will track down the souls he meant to take that day who slipped through his fingers. A police officer, Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), believes there’s a germ of truth in Kim’s story, and teams her up with Clear in hopes that together they can help prevent Death from snuffing out any more of the people involves in the accident that wasn’t. Tony Todd also returns from the first film as Mr. Bludworth.

Much as Keenen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You Sucka parodied the basic elements of 70’s blaxploitation pictures, this film written by and starring his younger brothers Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans pokes fun at the gritty “reality check” films of the 1990’s, such as Boyz N The Hood, Menace II Society and New Jack City. When Ashtray (Shawn Wayans) moves to South Central L.A. to live with his father (who appears to be the same age he is) and grandmother (who likes to talk tough and smoke reefer), he falls in with his gang-banging cousin Loc Dog (Marlon Wayans), who along with the requisite pistols and Uzi carries a thermo-nuclear warhead for self-defense. Will Ashtray keep living the straight life or will he join up with Loc Dog’s gangsta homeboys? And is his romance with self-styled poet Dashiki (Tracey Cherelle Jones) going to go anywhere? Big brother Keenen has a small role as a mailman.