Crime

Two escaped convicts go on a robbery and rape spree. The husband of one of their victims arms himself and goes looking for them.
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A young half-Korean waiter, bored with his life, joins a local gang led by a thoughtful and protective, yet vicious boss. He soon rises in the ranks of the group and is assigned more dangerous jobs. During this time he falls in love with a beautiful young prostitute who services rich Wall Street types in the back of their limos. All his life he has wanted to be something, and as he gets closer to that dream, he begins to walk the thin line between life and death.
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After a group of young revolutionaries break into a corporation’s headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance. Though sympathetic to their cause, the straight-arrow Tibbs refuses to consider it because they broke the law, but when the group is then accused of a murder it didn’t commit, Tibbs finally joins them in order to ferret out the identity of the real killer, while keeping his now rogue undercover investigation a secret from his SFPD superiors.
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Computer programmer Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) starts a new freelance gig and, strangely, all her colleagues start dying. Does it have something to do with the mysterious disc she was given? Her suspicions are raised when, during a trip to Mexico, she’s seduced by a handsome stranger (Jeremy Northam) intent on locating the same disc. Soon Angela is tangled up in a far-reaching conspiracy that leads to her identity being erased. Can she stop the same thing from happening to her life?
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A small-time hood brings the attention of the law with an insurance scam and diamond theft, but things become even more interesting when his moll murders him and is slammed behind bars where she faces all manner of electric shock treatments to various parts of her anatomy.
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In effect, modern cow town Spurline is run by Virgil Renchler, owner of the Golden Empire Ranch. One night, two of Virgil’s henchmen go a little too far and beat a “bracero” ranch hand to death. Faced with an obvious cover-up and opposition on every hand, sheriff Ben Sadler is goaded into investigating. His unlikely ally: Renchler’s lovely, self-willed and overprotected daughter. Will Ben survive Renchler’s wrath?
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Stanley Baker’s character is sent to steal the plans from another company of their racing car designs, to ensure his employers win the competition. However when opening a safe containing the plans, he triggers an alarm leading to a gun battle where he kills a number of people. James Robertson Justice alarmed by the scandal surrounding the killings orders his agent be killed surreptitiously to hide his involvement with the plot.
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Post WWII yarn about a young GI abducted by the Soviets in West Berlin and hauled off to the East. His recovery gets complicated as Colonel Steve Van Dyke (Peck) tries to sort out the usefulness of informants, spies, bureaucrats, and the abductee’s influential father (Crawford)!
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The film is packed with nice stunts throughout, but the screenplay could be better. After escaping the prison Chiba teams up with a bunch of thugs, who design prison escapes for money. Unfortunately trust and loyalty are unknown concepts to these men who take turns deceiving each other. The endless “who’s-cheating-who” game has been done better in other films, and sometimes the writing is downright sloppy: when a carefully planned escape operation fails, Chiba simply steals a fire engine and drives away without anyone noticing! It also feels that director Kosaku Yamashita, who made his name with yakuza films, was a bit out of his element here. However, even with these weaknesses it’s an entertaining action comedy which compares favourably against some of the later, similar Yasaku Matsuda films like Execution Game (1978) and No Grave for Us (1979). The focus is on stunts and comedy.
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Having Wonderful Crime spotlights Michael J. Malone, the murder-solving attorney created by author Craig Rice. The film is also ostensibly based on a novel by Rice, though precious little of the original actually made it to the screen. The story begins as Malone (Pat O’Brien) brusquely informs his newlywed friends Jake and Helene Justus (George Murphy and Carole Landis) that he’s not going to allow them to suck him into another murder mystery. Unfortunately for the attorney, Jake and Helene shortly afterward attend a stage magic show wherein the star magician (George Zucco) disappears for real! Their investigation leads to a resort hotel literally packed with murder suspects. When the newlyweds learn too much for their own good, it’s up to Malone to come to the rescue and nab the killer. One of the suspects is played by an actress named Anje Berens, who as “Gloria Holden” previously starred in Dracula’s Daughter (1936).
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