Bruce Dern

Los Angeles, 1969. As the final chapter of Hollywood`s golden age draws to a close, fading TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from Quentin Tarantino features an ensemble cast and multiple storylines, and is a glowing tribute to the memories of a bygone era.

Zak runs away from his care home to make his dream of becoming a wrestler come true.

Over 100,000 wild mustangs still roam across the US. Rounded up by helicopter, thousands of wild mustangs are taken from the wild to help reduce overpopulation. They are also threatened by limited resources and privatization of public land that threatens their existence. Most spend their lives in long-term holding facilities while some are killed. Of these, a few hundred are sent to prisons to be broken and trained by inmates and later sold at auction to support the program. The helicopters isolate a group of mustangs and drive them to an enclosure where they are captured in their holding cells. Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) has been incarcerated for 12 years after leaving his domestic partner permanently brain damaged in an attack. A psychologist interviews Roman Coleman in a Nevada prison he's been transferred to before they reinsert him into the general population. Aware of his short temper and violent tendencies, he has resisted efforts to be reintegrated back into society. Roman is non-responsive to all questions posed to him and refuses to engage. As he isn't good with people, she assigns him to outdoor maintenance. The first few days Roman is assigned to shovel horse feces from their pens to a dumping ground nearby. Roman notices a solitary confinement structure away from the other horses and approaches it. He is astonished to find a horse inside, who demonstrates a lot of spirit, which is why he is separated from the others. The horse won't allow anyone to touch it, and grunts loudly when Roman approaches it. While working outdoor maintenance, Roman is seen interacting with a 'dangerous' horse. Roman is not afraid of the horse and looks it in the eye. Roman is placed in a rehabilitation program run by rancher Myles (Bruce Dern) that assigns prisoners with training wild mustangs. Each prisoner in the program is given a specific horse to train and Roman is required to complete the training within 12 weeks before his horse is sold at an auction. Roman has a strained relationship with his pregnant daughter Martha (Gideon Adlon), who wants his signature to sell their house and move with her boyfriend to Atlanta. Martha visits Roman in prison. At first, Roman doesn't even recognize Martha and sits with another woman. Then he is told who Martha is, and Martha then explains the reason why she came over. Roman signs the last page and tells Martha not to return. Roman initially struggles with the training of his mustang, but under the guidance of Henry (Jason Mitchell), an inmate regarded as the top horse-trainer, Roman begins to make progress. Myles and Roman supervise the release of the mustang from its holding pen. The horse is nearly impossible to control. Henry teaches Roman to control the beast with the movements of his hand. Roman is told to remain in the center of the field and to make the horse move around him. The first part is to establish a sense of direction by getting the horse to change directions in the middle of their gallop. Never look the horse in the eye. Martha returns to get Roman's initials on every page. Discovering she's seeking emancipation to sell the house his mother left them for money to move to the east, he refuses to sign the documents. If Roman signs, Martha would be free from restraint, control, or the power of Roman, would be free to sell the house and move in with her boyfriend, who is a mechanic. Martha says that she needs the money to raise the baby. Martha riles Roman by saying that he has no clue about taking care of a baby, as in prison his meals are served, he has a bed, and he is a dependent of the state. Roman loses his cool in front of everybody and asks Martha to leave. The anger he feels in that situation carries over into his horse-training. Frustration with Martha causes him to lose his temper, he punches the animal repeatedly. The horse retaliates and starts to kick Roman, who is saved only when Myles intervenes. This incident causes Myles to kick him out of the horse-training program and into solitary confinement. The prison has its own system of moving good around when it is under lock-down, and Roman gets a steady stream of magazines to keep himself occupied. He reads the name Marquis in the magazine as the name of the horse of a noble. Before a thunderstorm strikes, the horse-training inmates are woken to take the horses undercover for safety. Roman redeems himself, both getting him out of solitary and returning him to the training program. As the weeks pass, Roman becomes close with the horse, whom he names Marquis, and forms a friendship with Henry. The program suffers a blow, however, when Henry is murdered by Dan (Josh Stewart), Roman's cellmate. Roman was stealing horse tranquilizers and bringing them to Dan, who was a drug addict. One day, Roman refused to deliver due to a falling out with Dan as Dan was demanding drugs in more and more frequency. Dan reverts by getting one of the prison gang members to cut Henry's throat. Roman retaliates by strangling Dan into unconsciousness before they are broken up by guards. The day of the auction arrives, which Roman invites Martha to attend with the hope of improving his relationship with her. While Roman showcases Marquis to the auctioneers, he becomes distracted after he notices Martha is not present. This distraction leads to disaster when Marquis is startled by an overhead helicopter, causing Roman to fall off his horse and nearly be trampled as the other trainers restrain Marquis. Shortly afterwards, Roman learns from Myles that Marquis has been deemed not trainable and will be Euthanized. Taking advantage of the prison gates being damaged by a storm, Roman is able to help Marquis escape and return to the wild. Some time later, Roman receives a letter from Martha acknowledging her father's refusal to leave prison. The letter also includes a photo of Martha with Roman's newly-born grandson, who she intends to have Roman meet during her next visit. After Roman finishes reading the letter, he spots Marquis standing by the prison gates and smiles.

Based on the real life story of Richard Wershe Jr., who, as a teenager, worked as an FBI informant in the 1980's. Wershe was ultimately arrested for drug trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

A sudden zombie attack forces a group of people, that under different circumstances would never interact with each other, to fight for their lives.

Charles Farmer, played by Billy Bob Thornton, is a soft-spoken, wellliked, small town family man who has spent years building a rocket ship in his barn. As he nears completion of his project, however, several complications appear in his trajectory in the form of government interference and economic problems. Once the media got a hold of the story, the money woes seemed to make less sense to me. Look for Bruce Willis as a former astronaut, who visits Farmer. We spend the film watching and wondering whether these issues can be overcome and allow him to launch, and whether or not he should even try. Virginia Madsen stars as his supportive wife and Max Thieriot is his fifteen-year old son and assistant. (this first appeared on realmoviereview.com)

16-year-old Ruby Baker (Leelee Sobieski), who lives in California, is out partying late with her friends. When Ruby arrives home, there is a patrol car waiting for her. Ruby assumes that her parents, David Anthony Baker (Michael O'Keefe) and Grace Heather Avery Baker (Rita Wilson) reported her missing, since she was out so late. Instead, the police inform her that David and Grace have been killed in a car accident on Mulholland Drive, and a devastated Ruby faints. Drunk driving is blamed for the accident. David was 45-years-old, and Grace was 42-years-old. At the funeral, Ruby's 11-year-old brother Rhett Clark Baker (Trevor Morgan) breaks down in tears as he's about to talk about their parents, and he's comforted by David and Grace's good friends Terrence "Terry" Glass (Stellan Skarsgard) and Dr. Erin Madre Glass (Diane Lane). Terry gives a very eloquent tribute to David and Grace. After the funeral, Ruby and Rhett's uncle Jack Avery (Chris Noth), Grace's brother who lives in Chicago, talks to Ruby, who hadn't seen Jack in 10 years. Ruby was 6-years-old back then. Rhett was only a year old back then, so he doesn't really know Jack at all. After the funeral, Ruby is told by Grace and David's estate lawyer, Alvin Begleiter (Bruce Dern), that Grace and David were very well off, and she and Rhett have enough money to be well off for the rest of their lives. Alvin also tells Ruby that in their will, Grace and David asked that Terry and Erin be Ruby and Rhett's guardians in case anything happened to Grace and David. Alvin then tells Ruby that if she ever needs him for anything, to please call him. Ruby and Rhett move into Terry and Erin's house, which is a very expensive house overlooking Malibu, California. The house is furnished with the finest items money can buy. Rhett finally has the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 that he always wanted, the fridge is well-stocked, and there is a nice swimming pool outside. The strange thing is, even in such a large house, Ruby has to share a bedroom with Rhett, but Terry says that Ruby and Rhett sharing a bedroom is a temporary arrangement. Ruby and Rhett no longer go to their exclusive private schools, but rather to the Malibu public schools. Ruby is horrified by her first day of driver's ed, because they show a film about drunk driving, and it reminds Ruby that David and Grace's deaths were blamed on drunk driving. Things are going great for Rhett, but then Ruby sees an argument between Terry and Erin. Terry takes Ruby out for dinner, and assures her that everything is fine. On the way home, Terry is driving alarmingly fast. Terry stops the car, and it looks like he's reaching over to kiss Ruby. She pulls back, and is very scared. Terry says, "You're not wearing your shoulder belt," then he puts her seatbelt on her. When they get home, Ruby goes inside and finds Erin passed out on the couch, with a needle in her arm. Ruby is more than a bit alarmed. The next day, Ruby talks Vicki (Julia Vera), the housekeeper, into driving her halfway to town, then she hitchhikes the rest of the way to Alvin's office. Ruby tells Alvin that she doesn't think David and Grace wanted Terry and Erin to be their guardians. Ruby also tells Alvin about the arrangement of sharing a bedroom with Rhett, and about when Terry stopped the car last night and acted like he was going to kiss her. Ruby also tells Alvin about Erin shooting herself up with the syringe. Alvin tells Ruby that she and Rhett would become wards of the state if things don't work out with Terry and Erin, but Alvin says he'll look into it. Ruby remembers that Alvin told her that she and Rhett have enough money to be well off for the rest of their lives, and Ruby asks Alvin how much money that is...and Alvin says that it's $4,000,000. Grace and David were better off than Ruby and Rhett thought they were. That night, Terry and Erin tell Ruby that Erin was injecting herself because Erin is diabetic. On the next day, Vicki doesn't pick Ruby up from school, so Ruby goes to the building of Glass Transit Incorporated (GTI), Terry's company. A secretary directs Ruby to a lounge, and Ruby sees Terry getting roughed up by a pair of men, and she doesn't know that the two men work for a loan shark. The lounge overlooks GTI's work garage, where the company's cars are worked on. Ruby goes down into the work garage, and sees the Saab that belonged to David and Grace. On the way home, Terry, knowing that Ruby saw him getting roughed up, tells Ruby that sometimes businessmen get carried away. Also, Terry has fired Vicky because she drove Ruby halfway to town yesterday without asking him. That night, Ruby writes down the code number to Terry and Erin's security system as Terry types it. That way, Ruby can get in and out whenever she has to. Ruby checks the newspaper online, and discovers that instead of driving the Saab, Grace and David were driving a BMW sedan when they crashed. Ruby e-mails that information to Alvin. Ruby falls asleep working on a Hamlet paper, and when she wakes up, she discovers that Terry has finished it for her. She thanks him, and he just smiles and winks. Ruby is visited at school by Nancy Ryan (Kathy Baker), a social worker who is quite disturbed by what Ruby told Alvin. Nancy goes to Terry and Erin's house, and Terry acts agitated that Nancy is doing this in the middle of a business day. Nancy checks out the house, but conveniently, Ruby and Rhett now have separate bedrooms, and the drugs in Erin's medicine cabinet are now drugs for diabetics. After Nancy leaves, Ruby notices something in the garbage...a postcard that Jack sent to Ruby and Rhett from Chicago. Ruby tears off the section that has Jack's phone number on it, then puts the rest of the card back in the garbage. That night, as a thunderstorm soaks the area, Ruby tries to login to her AOL account, and gets a message that says "This account has been closed." The loan shark's men call Terry, and Ruby overhears Terry telling the men that six months ago, Terry took in a silent partner who skimmed money from him, causing Terry to need a loan, and Terry's next payment is due tomorrow, but they decide to give Terry two days. On the next day, Ruby uses the school's pay phone to call Alvin. Alvin tells Ruby that he sent her an e-mail, and Ruby tells Alvin that she didn't get the message, because Terry ended her account. Alvin tells Ruby that the BMW sedan was registered to GTI. Ruby is called to see Vice Principal Bassett (Rutanya Alda). Ruby's teacher, Mr. Kim (Michael Paul Chan), has accused her of plagiarizing the Hamlet paper from a book called "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human." Ruby didn't know that Terry copied from this book. Ruby now realizes that Terry set her up by copying from the book, and then letting the school think Ruby did it. That night, during a thunderstorm, Ruby finds a card for The Challenge School for Teenage Girls, which is located in Cedar Falls, Washington. Terry wants Ruby out of his way, because she's been so nosy. Ruby tries to call Jack, but Jack is not home. Ruby takes the car keys out of Terry and Erin's bedroom, then Ruby wakes Rhett up, and they take Terry's car, and get out of there. Ruby knows that Terry and Erin had Rhett lie to Nancy, and Rhett didn't know Nancy was a social worker. Ruby helps Rhett realize that Terry and Erin bought him off by giving him the Sony PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. While Ruby and Rhett are still out on the road, it turns out that the road is blocked by a mudslide, and Terry and Erin are right behind them. Terry and Erin take them back home. On the way home, Ruby tells Terry that she knows that Terry killed David and Grace. Terry had borrowed $1,000,000 from the loan sharks. Terry, fearing for his life, knew that if David and Grace got killed, he and Erin would become Ruby and Rhett's new guardians, putting the $4,000,000 within Terry's grasp so he can have a chance to pay off the two loan sharks, and keep them from killing him. When they pull up to the house, Ruby runs, and Terry chases her inside the house as Erin puts Rhett to bed. Terry holds Ruby down while Erin injects Ruby with fentanyl, a drug that knocks Ruby out. A month goes by, and Terry and Erin are pretty much keeping Ruby in the drug-induced coma. Then they run out of fentanyl. Erin, who is actually a drug addict, is found stealing drugs at work, and she is told that her medical license will be revoked, so now they can't get any more fentanyl. That angers Terry, who decides to go out and find something that will keep Ruby in the drug-induced coma. On the next day, Ruby wakes up, and Erin is laying beside of her -- dead of an overdose from injecting herself. Ruby wakes Rhett up, and when Ruby and Rhett try to leave, Terry grabs them, and locks them in the basement. Terry goes into the garage and cuts the brake line on his car, in hopes that Ruby and Rhett will escape in that car, and be killed in a wreck when the brakes fail, so Terry can have the $4,000,000. When Terry finishes, he pulls the car out of the garage and goes back inside the house, grabs a bottle of an alcoholic beverage, and pretends to pass out, leaving the keys to the car right next to him. Rhett breaks out of the basement, takes Terry's keys, and unlocks the basement for Ruby. Just before Ruby and Rhett go outside, Alvin shows up, and Ruby and Rhett hide so they can hear what Alvin has to say. It turns out that Alvin warned Terry about everything Ruby told Alvin, because Alvin trusted Terry, and David and Grace trusted Terry. Alvin believed that if Terry was lying and the courts stepped in and took Ruby and Rhett away from Terry and Erin, then Ruby and Rhett would have no place to go, so Alvin thought he was helping Ruby and Rhett. The two loan sharks pull up in one of Terry's company Lamborghinis. The loan shark's enforcers are lead to believe that Alvin was the silent partner who skimmed from Terry, so the enforcers fatally stab Alvin. Next, they grab Terry and lead him outside to his car, the one he cut the brake line on. Since they both have 2-seaters, they take 2 cars. Terry pleads with them to take the other car in the garage, because Terry knows that the car in the garage doesn't have a leaking brake line like the car outside the garage does. When they get inside the garage, they find the tires flat and have to take his sports car. What they don't know is that Ruby used a knife to flatten the tires. Terry is pleading with the enforcers, but they put duct tape over his mouth to shut him up, and they tie his hands with duct tape. The two cars take off down the winding Malibu roads. The brakes fail in Terry's car because of the leaking brake line. That causes the car to bump into the Lamborghini, which is hit by a large truck, killing one of the enforcers. And then the car carrying Terry and the other enforcer crashes through a guardrail, and over a small cliff. Ruby and Rhett are walking alone down the road, and they're picked up by a cop who asks them if they need any help. Down the road, the cop notices that the guardrail is missing a section. He tells Ruby and Rhett to wait in his car while he checks it out. The cop walks down the hill, sees the car and a body, and calls in one fatality -- the other enforcer. He also calls in the location. Then the cop is knocked out by a bloodied and bruised Terry. Ruby and Rhett look on in horror as Terry staggers onto the road. Ruby jumps to the front seat of the cop's car, grabs the keys, and starts the car. The look on Ruby's face shows that she hates Terry for killing David and Grace. Ruby backs the car up a few feet, and then switches gears. As Ruby floors the car forward, Terry pulls out a gun, and fires a shot as Ruby slams the car into Terry, killing Terry and causing his body to roll onto the hood, and then quickly off of the hood. A couple more cops show up, having received the first cop's call. Later, as Jack looks on, Ruby and Rhett put flowers on the double grave where David and Grace were buried. Ruby and Rhett will be living with Jack in Chicago.

The Haunting (1999) is a remake of the 1963 film, "The Haunting." The movie starts with Eleanor "Nell" Vance (Lili Taylor) arguing with her sister over the house which her recently deceased mother, whom Nell took care of for 11 years, left her sister in the will. After her sister gives her her mother's car, Nell orders her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew to leave. Once she's alone she finds an ad in the local newspaper asking for volunteers to take part in a study on insomnia at an old New England mansion, which Nell decides to join. Elsewhere we find Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson) discussing with his assistant Mary over which volunteers he should use for his study, which he explains is actually an experiment on how people react to fear. Once Nell arrives at Hill House, she argues politely with Mr. Dudley the caretaker to let her in. After minutes of arguing she finally enters through the gates of Hill House where at the door she finds Mr. Dudley's wife Mrs. Dudley. As Nell makes her way to her room, it's clear that she's instantly drawn to the house. Moments later Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) arrives and gives Nell with an awkward homophobic reaction. After the two get to know each other a little better, they both go downstairs and explore, and find the carousel room, then they return to the main entrance and meet Luke (Owen Wilson) Dr. Marrow, and his two assistants Mary and Todd. Once they get to dinner they discuss insomnia issues and find out more about each other, and learn what they'd be doing for the next few days. After dinner, Dr. Marrow leads his guests to a room to tell everyone the story of Hill House and how Hugh Crain had built it for his wife and wished desperately for children, which all died at birth. After Dr. Marrow tells the story his assistant Mary talks about how she can feel the evil everywhere and that there's more to the story. As she goes up to examine the piano one of the strings snaps and cuts her, causing her and Todd to leave for the remainder of the movie. As everyone gets ready for bed Dr. Marrow tells Luke about how Hugh Crain's wife had killed herself, in order to scare Luke. Once upstairs Luke occupies himself with a book and a candy dispenser, while Theo tries to get closer to Nell, and Nell reluctantly asks to go to bed. As Nell and Theo are in bed, Luke decides to wander around, and is met be Dr. Marrow, who decides to talk for a while. As everything calms down for the night Nell is startled by a screaming Theo, in response to a constant mysterious banging on the walls. Nell and Theo cower as Luke rushes to see what the screaming is, although he was unaware of any banging. The next morning everyone tries to talk things out, but Dr. Marrow assures everyone the coldness and noises were all due to the old plumbing. The next night as Nell is asleep the movie encounters it's first visual samples of paranormal activity, and Nell is encountered by ghostly figures taking forms through the bed sheets and curtains. As Nell and Luke are filling out papers for Dr. Marrows research, Luke confides in Nell that Dr. Marrow must be up to something and that he would get to the bottom of things. Luke soon wanders off talking about Theo leaving Nell alone, where she experiences more paranormal events. Everyone quickly rushes in to see what was wrong and finds Nell scared, and concerned over what was happening in the house. While Dr. Marrow and Luke looked around to see what might have startled Eleanor look comes to a frightening observation that the large portrait of Hugh Crain had been vandalized with blood reading, "Welcome Home Eleanor." Eleanor is appalled at the writing and demands to know who did it, but no one confesses, leaving tension between the characters. The group soon makes their way to the green room where they find a large unstable spiral staircase, and a fountain containing a large statue of Hugh Craine, and some more statues of a women surrounded by 6 children. As another night comes we find Nell sleeping, but she is soon awakened by some more sounds. As she looks around she finds a trail of bloody foot prints leading her to a hidden library. In the library she finds logs of hundreds of children that Hugh Craine must have taken in to his house, finding that many of them had actually died working for Hugh Crain. She goes to tell Theo, but Theo doesn't believe what Nell tells her, and goes back to bed. Once Eleanor is alone she starts to brush her hair, but when she stops her hair parts on it's own, and Eleanor is deeply frightened once more. The next morning Nell finds Dr. Marrow's studies, and learns what the experiment actually is. She also finds out that he's interpreting her behavior as delusional. In the statue garden Luke talks to Theo and seems to have also figured out what Dr. Marrow was doing, but when they encounter Nell, she expresses that it's not Dr. Marrow doing everything to the house, and that it's indeed ghosts. She then insists that home is where the heart is. When Nell looks up she sees Hugh Crain's wife hanging, but no one else sees it leading everyone to think even more that Eleanor is mentally unstable and should go home. Nell rushes to the library and finds pictures of Hugh Crain's wife whispering for her to check the fire place. In the fire place Nell finds a skeleton that comes to life causing Nell to run away, following the voices of children. She tries to go through a door but is punched by a hand that formed from the door and soon disappeared. Eleanor rushes to the rest of the group and concludes that Hugh Crain took children from the town to work at the mills then never let them go. As she tells this to Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow, they conclude that she's going crazy from emotional distress and fear. As Theo tries talking to Dr. Marrow about her, she finds that they're in an experiment to study reactions to fear, and becomes furious at what the experiment had done to Nell. Once Nell's in bed and Theo finishes comforting her and leaves to bring her tea, the walls form the shape of a face, and everything starts falling apart around her. She runs out and looks in the mirror to see Mrs. Crain's face, and then runs away again to the carousel room. She's then extremely frightened and runs to the green room. Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow go searching for Nell and finally come to the green room to find Nell climbing the spiral stair case. Dr. Marrow goes to save her, but the stairway starts to unhinge, causing Dr. Marrow to desperately and quickly bring Nell to safety. Dr. Marrow goes to the green room to examine and take notes, and is grabbed by the statue of Hugh Crain, which them starts to fountain out blood. He runs to Theo and Luke, to go check on Eleanor. Eleanor's bed cages her in metal beams, and Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow desperately try to get in to help. Once they get in everyone else finally observes the paranormal aspects of Hill House for the first time. As soon as they get Nell out they try to leave, but Hill House makes sure that there's no way of escaping. Nell then runs back to the house knowing that she's meant to save the children. Everyone runs in looking for her, so they can leave, and they finally find her. Even after Theo tries to compromise with letting her by letting her live with her, Nell refuses to leave until she saves the children. Luke, Theo, and Dr. Marrow still try to escape now that they can't leave the house, but can't find anyway out. Luke then falls into the fire place, and as he's trying to get out he gets decapitated by a stone lion. The house is now coming to life, and everything that can is trying to attack the current occupants. Finally the ghost of Hugh Crain comes out for a final battle, but as his ghost is being sent to the walls Eleanor goes along with it crashing her body against the stone door. She then falls to the ground dying. As Nell dies the children's spirits are release along with her's. The movie ends with the Dudleys returning and a final shot of the house

In 1930, Jericho, a backwater Texan town 50 miles from the Mexican border, two crime syndicates, the Italian mob led by Fredo Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg), and the Irish mob led by "Mr. Doyle" (David Patrick Kelly), compete for control of the lucrative border smuggling pipeline. The authorities have been ineffective at keeping the peace, and have have stopped trying. The current Sheriff, Ed Galt (Bruce Dern), actually seems to be exploiting the conflict for personal gain. John Smith (Bruce Willis), a self-described loner without a conscience, enters Jericho and immediately gets into trouble through a careless glance at Doyle's girl Felina (Karina Lombard). Doyle's henchman, Finn (Patrick Kilpatrick), notices Smith ogling Felina and confronts him. After some mutual trash talk, Finn smashes the windshield of Smith's car and slashes his tires, then casually directs him to the Sheriff's office. Smith pays a visit to Sheriff Galt and his mute deputy, Bob, who refuse to get involved. Galt advises Smith to buy a gun. Smith enters the town saloon, finding it empty except for the owner - Joe Monday (William Sanderson), and orders a whiskey. He takes a set of guns from his pack, and walks back across the street to the Irish HQ to have a word with Finn. John asks tentatively if he will cover the damages. Finn draws first - but is sent flying across the street with a few bullets in his chest. Smith shoots up the place - the others don't move. Soon, Strozzi offers Smith a job on his team. Smith gets a room at the Italian controlled Hotel, and free meals. Smith meets Strozzi's attractive girlfriend, Lucy (Alexandra Powers), and learns more about Doyle's most fearsome enforcer, Hickey (Christopher Walken). At a communal meal for all Strozzi's men, Giorgio (Michael Imperioli) Strozzi's bad tempered cousin, arrives late - and immediately takes a dislike to Smith. Smith leaves, and returns to the saloon. He becomes dissastisfied with Strozzi's leadership style, and it is implied that Strozzi and Giorgio are incompetent. That night, while spending time with the prostitute Wanda (Leslie Mann), the Irish plan a hit on Smith - but he manages to kill both assassins. Smith was set-up by Wanda. She is hysterical. He knocks her out, and later learns that she was blackmailed. He leaves her to be arrested by Galt. Soon, Smith is summoned to a hideout in the middle of the desert by Strozzi, a roadside diner. They plan a hit on Doyle's next shipment from Mexico... At the border, Smith is given the job to approach the convoy of trucks. He offers the Mexican commandant in charge, Ramirez, an offer to turn on Doyle's men. The Mexicans take it up - and massacre the Irish men under their protection. Later, Smith pays to release Wanda from the cells, and gives her money to take the next bus out of town. He gives a tip to the Sheriff about the convoy heist, and hears another story about Hickey. Back in Lucy's room, Smith offers money for information on Strozzi, and seduces her. Soon enough, Doyle and another of his henchmen, Jack (R.D. Call), attempt to hire Smith to assassinate Strozzi, as his position inside Strozzi's gang makes him perfect. Smith expresses discomfort at the offer and Doyle misinterprets this as a rejection. So Smith decides to play both sides. He quits working for Strozzi. Strozzi pulls a gun on Smith, angrily reminding him "nobody quits me." Smith beats up Giorgio, and then engages Strozzi in an armed standoff. Convinced that Giorgio is a "halfwit" that's not worth dying for, Strozzi stands down. For his next move, Smith does his best to stay sober a few days as he waits for Hickey to show. He learns from the mechanic that Giorgio has been snooping around, trying to get the dirt on him. Smith delivers a tip to Giorgio - to watch out for Ramirez, in case he turns sides again. Giorgio takes the bait and leaves for Mexico. Smith then tells the Irish where Giorgio will be, and also that he will be with the Mexicans that betrayed him - and stole his money and trucks. He is paid for the info, but still won't commit. He finally meets Hickey, who is immediately suspicious of him. Hickey returns to Mexico. He enters a cantina, shoots Ramirez, then a border patrol cop, and captures Giorgio. Meanwhile, Smith meets with Felina in an abandoned church to hear her story. Back in Jericho, Captain Pickett from the Texas Rangers arrives in town to warn Smith and the Sheriff that he is investigating the murder of the border cop. He will return in ten days with more Rangers - and will tolerate one gang in the town, but not two. And he wants Smith to be gone. Hickey returns - and offers a deal to Strozzi -- $100 grand and the trucks for Giorgio. At the drop-off Strozzi pulls a fast one - he has kidnapped Felina. They swap Giorgio for Felina as Smith looks on. It's war! Lucy meets with Smith, she tells him that Strozzi and Giorgio found out that she slept with him, and subsequently beat her and mutiliated one of her ears. Smith falls for her story, and gives her $500 to get the next bus out of town. Smith accepts Doyle's offer - but wants $1000 up front. He tells Doyle that he "heard a rumor" that Strozzi has more trigger men arriving in town that night, playing on Doyle's fears that Felina could be targeted again. Doyle sends Smith to the hideut where Felina is being kept. The place is heavily guarded. He steps in through the front door. Immediately, Doyle's men know something is up. Smith opens fire. He kills every last one of them. Smith puts Felina in a car, and tells her to flee across the border. She gives John her cross. Smith knows he should leave, but instead he waits at the hideout to deliver the bad news to Doyle. Doyle arrives the next morning, and believes his story that Felina was taken. He is devastated. But Hickey is on to him. Smith returns to Jericho, and takes a bath. Hickey drops by - someone had seen Felina over the border, where she had sold the car. In the room, they find her cross. Smith is taken to a basement over at Doyle's hideout. Jack and Hickey mercilessly beat Smith as Doyle talks about how he "saved" Felina from a crappy life in Mexico. When it becomes clear that Smith will not give up any information, he is left for dead. The next day two goons return - but Smith is missing. Suddenly he jumps out from a metal cabinet, and using the smaller man as a shield pumps about a dozen bullets into the larger thug. He escapes. Doyle's men try to find him. First he hides out in the saloon, in the walls behind slabs of ice. He relays some intel to Galt. Galt tells Doyle that Smith is at Slim's Roadhouse in the desert, but knowing really that the Italians are hiding there. Doyle's men set the building ablaze, and proceed to shoot everyone who attempts to escape the flames. Strozzi and Giorgio admit defeat, promising to leave town if they are spared, but Doyle's men coldly gun them down. The Irish assume that Smith has died in the blaze. Smith returns to the abandoned church to heal. Joe brings him food and bandages everyday, but soon enough the Irish catch onto this. Joe is taken and beaten. Galt finds Smith and tells him about Joe. Hickey and Doyle are in Mexico, still looking for Felina. John takes Galt's gun, and heads off to Strozzi's old hotel - where Joe is kept. On his way there, he picks up his lucky hat - and stops by the window of the Undertaker's - one of his few friends in town! Smith storms in to the hotel. Bad guys are blown away like they're on bungee ropes with the force of each gunshot. John follows Jack to an upstairs room -- inside is Joe, tied up. Joe motions with his eyes - and Smith shoots through a cabinet dresser. Jack falls out, dead. Smith has been shot - but just the once. He pours some whiskey on his wound. He leaves a tommy gun against the door as a message for Hickey, and tells Galt that he'll be at Slim's Roadhouse waiting. Everyone is leaving town - Galt to Houston, and even the Undertaker is getting away while he can! Smith and Joe wait at the burnt-out building. Doyle, Hickey, and Bob arrive the following morning. Joe hides. Doyle wants a truce. He is lovesick - and just wants to find his girl. Joe jumps out and shoots him dead in retaliation for ruining his town. Bob raises his shotgun, so Smith fires a few rounds into his body. Hickey drops his tommy gun. He walks away - he doesn't want to die in Texas. He asks Smith if he would shoot an unarmed man in the back. Smith tells him he's done a lot worse. Hickey pulls out a pistol and turns - but Smith shoots him in the head. Smith takes the cross from Doyle's lifeless hand, gets in the car, and leaves to continue his journey.

The early career of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickock is telescoped and culminates in his relocation in Deadwood and a reunion with Calamity Jane. Maverick Writer and Director Walter Hill's version of the famous Wild Bill Hickok legend is a dreamscape western that is told entirely in flashback. Hickok's friend Charley Prince (Sir John Hurt) narrates the events of Wild Bill's life while sitting at Bill's graveside. Hickok is played by Jeff Bridges as a mean, high-spirited, but gallant outlaw. He wanders the West, adding to his reputation with some well-chosen gunfights, and he meets up with characters such as Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin), who becomes his sidekick for a time. After becoming a legend, Hickok signs up for a stint with Buffalo Bill Cody's travelling variety show. Eventually, he falls in love with Susannah Moore (Diane Lane), and his love leads him to tragedy in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota. Wild Bill Hickok, famed lawman and gunman of the Old West, is haunted by his past and his reputation. He is loved by, but cannot love, Calamity Jane. Dogging his trail is young Jack McCall, who blames Bill for abandoning the boy's mother and destroying her life. McCall has sworn to kill Bill, and Bill's ghosts, his failing eyesight, and his fondness for opium may make McCall's task easier. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

An overstressed suburbanite and his neighbors are convinced that the new family on the block is part of a murderous Satanic cult. He's a man of peace in a savage land: Suburbia. When secretive new neighbors move in next door, suburbanite Ray Peterson and his friends let their paranoia get the best of them as they start to suspect the newcomers of evil doings and commence an investigation.But it's hardly how Ray, who much prefers to drink beer, read his newspaper, and watch a ballgame on the tube, expected to spend his vacation. —purstris This story takes place in a typical American neighborhood, when new neighbors come to live in the house next to Ray Peterson. These new people are really strange: nobody has ever seen them, their house is a real mess, and during the night weird noises keep coming from their basement. The only thing they know is their name: Klopek. One day Walter (an old man of the neighborhood) suddenly disappears and everyone starts to suspect the Klopeks. —Chris Makrozahopoulos <makzax@hotmail.com> Ray Peterson takes a week off from work just to walk around in pajamas all day, read the newspaper, and lie low. However, Ray has some very peculiar neighbors. He actually has no "normal" neighbors, but one particular neighbor is especially strange. Therefore, Ray and the other neighbors decide to investigate what's wrong with the Klopeks, and the relaxing week off from work becomes something far from relaxing. —Lars J. Aas <larsa@colargol.edb.tih.no> The Klopek family moves into an old house in a new neighborhood and act in very unusual ways. Everyone nearby is concerned about why these new people are acting strangely and the people have never seen them before. Plus, no one has greeted them for the month they've moved in there. Then three neighbors team up to see if they can figure out what is really going on with the Klopeks. —Atariman

On November 12, 1975, Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller) arrives at the airport in Beirut, Lebanon. Taking a taxi into town, she walks through narrow alleys and bazaars, then slips into the back seat of a waiting car. The vehicle takes her to a gated compound, where she meets Nageeb (Victor Campos), a Palestinian co-conspirator. He shows her a secret film of an American prisoner of war named Mike Lander (Bruce Dern) confessing his war crimes to his North Vietnamese captors. Nageeb admonishes Dahlia that she's built an upcoming mission around Lander who is obviously unstable, but Dahlia insists she can control him. Dahlia tells Nageeb to destroy the film because it could compromise her mission. Confident that her plan will succeed, Dahlia records an audio statement on behalf of her guerrilla group, Black September, telling the American people that it's time for them to pay for aiding Israel's repression of the Palestinians. That night, Israeli commando Major David Kabakov (Robert Shaw) leads a strike team against the compound. When Kalakov enters Nageeb's room and kills him, he finds Dahlia taking a shower in the adjoining bathroom; however, he assumes she's Nageeb's mistress or a local prostitute and doesn't shoot her. Kabakov's men gather evidence, including Dahlia's tape recorder, and escape the compound before blowing it up. On November 14, Mike Lander is piloting a Goodyear blimp above a football game at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The head of the television crew is angry because Lander can't get the blimp and its overhead camera in the right spot. But Lander brushes him off, knowing that no other pilot would even try to fly a dirigible in the high winds that day. On November 17, in Washington, D.C., F.B.I. agent Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver) is called to the Israeli embassy to hear Dahlia's tape. Kabakov tells Corley that Dahlia's wording indicates that Dahlia's message was not a warning but rather a justification to be heard after a planned terrorist attack. He suspects the attack is planned for January. Kabakov recognizes Dahlia as the woman he saw in the shower, but he has no idea who she is. Meanwhile, Dahlia goes to Lander's apartment in Los Angeles. Lander is an emotional wreck because Dahlia hasn't contacted him in three days and he thinks she's betrayed him. Dahlia calms him with a gift-a statuette of the Madonna made of an explosive compound that he needs for his project. Dahlia encourages Lander to pull himself together and go to his Veteran's Administration rehabilitation meeting, so that he won't lose his piloting job with Goodyear. Later that day, at the V.A., Lander reveals his bitterness. Despite his heroism and years as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, the Navy turned his wife against him and took away his commission. On the night of November 23, Lander and Dahlia unload wooden crates from a freighter in the Long Beach harbor when a Coast Guard cutter approaches. Since Lander's speedboat is faster and smaller, he's able to evade them by running under a low bridge, but the Coast Guard reports the clandestine activity to the F.B.I. The freighter captain tells Corley that he knows nothing about the incident, but when Kabakov and fellow Israeli agent Robert Moshevsky (Steven Keats) sneak aboard the ship that night and threaten to slit the captain's throat, he confesses that his crew delivered 12 crates to a man and a woman in masks. Just then, the phone rings, and when the captain answers it, the receiver explodes, killing the captain and injuring Kabakov. When Dahlia sees Kabakov on television being carried into the emergency room of a local hospital, she disguises herself as a Catholic nurse, breaks into the hospital drug room and fills a syringe with potassium chloride. However, Moshevsky spots her before she can get into Kabakov's room and demands that she accompany him downstairs to the nurses' station for identification. On the elevator Dahlia jabs the needle into his neck and kills him. As soon as Kabakov gets out of the hospital, he goes to the office of Muzi (Michael V. Gazzo), the local importer in charge of Lander and Dahlia's shipment. Holding Muzi at gunpoint, Kabakov learns that the shipment was plastic explosives, the woman called herself "Kaza" and the man who paid him was an Egyptian in Tripoli named Mamud al Bernardi. On December 3 , Lander and Dahlia land a small plane at a desolate Mojave Desert airstrip to test an explosive device he's designed for the mission. Lander gains the confidence of the airstrip's sole caretaker and kills him by firing off hundreds of "steel rifle darts"-pieces of shrapnel-in one symmetrical blast. Ecstatic with his success, Lander tells Dahlia that 200,000 darts could cause significant damage if they were detonated 100 feet above the fifty-yard line of a football game from the Goodyear blimp. Back in Washington, D.C., Kabakov has a secret rendezvous near the Lincoln Memorial with an old intelligence rival, Egyptian Colonel Riaf (Walter Gotel), and convinces him that it's in both of their interests that he find out who Kaza is. When the men meet again days later, Riaf has a photograph of Kaza and reveals that her real name is Dahlia Iyad. Riaf explains that Dahlia was born in Haifa (then Palestine) to an Arab father and German mother, and Israeli commandos killed the men of her family and forced her mother, sister and Dahlia into refugee camps, where only Dahlia survived. A few days later, Dahlia hauls a speedboat-shaped trailer into Miami, Florida, and parks it in a locked storage area. When she checks into the downtown Hotel Edward, Palestinian agent Mohammed Fasil (Bekim Fehmiu) greets her with news that the Israelis have found out who she is. Although Fasil wants her to abort the mission and go into hiding, she refuses, insisting it's already too far along. On January 1, 1976, Corley and Kabakov are alerted that Dahlia has been spotted in Miami, but by the time they arrive, she has already driven back to Los Angeles and only Fasil is at the hotel. Before F.B.I. agents can apprehend Fasil, he shoots his way out and wages a running gun battle through the city until Kabakov kills him on the beach. When Kabakov and Corley search Fasil's hotel room, the commando holds up a magazine with the Miami Orange Bowl on the cover. The two hurry to the Orange Bowl and try to convince stadium authorities that they need to cancel the upcoming Super Bowl X football game to be held on January 18, but the authorities refuse and claim that the President has arranged to be at the event. Although security is enhanced and all flights over Miami during the Super Bowl are canceled, police helicopters and the Goodyear blimp are allowed to fly overhead. On January 17, the day before the game, Lander's mission is stymied when Goodyear replaces him with another pilot named Farley (Tom McFadden). Assuring Lander that he needn't worry, Dahlia goes to Farley's hotel room, kills him and puts a "Do Not Disturb" sign on his door. The next morning on January 18, Lander joins his crew and tells them that Farley is sick. At the airfield, the men prepare the blimp, lift off and head for the stadium. During the game, Lander starts a fire in one of the engines, which provides him with an excuse to hurry the blimp back to the field and fix it. Dahlia is waiting there with the trailer and helps to hook up Lander's contraption to the underbelly of the blimp's gondola, claiming it's a last-minute request from CBS-TV. However, one of the television crewmen becomes suspicious and runs back to the CBS remote trailer. Lander follows the man and shoots him. Meanwhile, the police find Farley's body at the hotel and alert the authorities that the blimp is the terrorists' weapon. Lander and Dahlia use automatic weapons to kill the men on the blimp airfield, including several policemen and an F.B.I. man, then head back toward the stadium, dumping the gondola's equipment to offset the added weight of the shrapnel. Kabakov and Corley commandeer a police helicopter and follow them, using the gondola's limited visibility beneath the blimp to avoid detection. Lander pilots the blimp with the bomb towards the Orange Bowl stadium while Dahlia provides covering fire as she opens fire and shoots down a police helicopter, and forces unarmed civilian media helicopters to back away. Dahlia opens fire on the helicopter containing Kabakov and Corley when it comes into view, slightly wounding Corley when he tries shooting at the blimp with a rifle. As Kabakov and Corley swoop down next to the gondola for another pass, Kabakov opens fire with his sub-machine gun, killing Dahlia and wounding Lander, but it's too late to stop the blimp. Using the helicopter's cargo hook line, Kabakov slides down onto one of the blimp's rear tails and connects it to the helicopter in time to pull the dirigible away from inside the stadium and toward the nearby ocean. In his final moments, Lander lights a backup fuse to detonate the bomb. Moments after the helicopter lifts Kabakov free from the blimp, Lander's invention explodes in a ball of fire, spraying the ocean surface with shrapnel. With 80,000 lives saved, the helicopter flies back toward Miami.

Alfred Hitchcock's last film is a hilarious romp that successfully combines mystery and humor. When a wealthy woman hires a phony psychic and a con man to find her missing heir, the results are diabolical, deadly, and laugh out loud funny! Essential viewing for all film fans, not just Hitchcock buffs! Featuring Academy Award nominees Karen Black, Bruce Dern, and Barbara Harris.

In 1924, Estie comes to Hollywood to become an actress but the dog that followed her becomes the star. Hollywood has its own rules of success.

An unscrupulous politico marshal and his deputies chase a gang of train robbers whose leader proves that every man has his price. A tough marshal with political ambitions leads an elite posse to capture a notorious criminal. He succeeds, but instead of cheering him, the public turns against him.

A Midwesterner becomes fascinated with his nouveau riche neighbor, who obsesses over his lost love. Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy. —Cleo <frede005@maroon.tc.umn.edu>

Rancher Wil Andersen is forced to hire inexperienced boys as cowhands in order to get his cattle herd to market on time but the rough drive is full of dangers and a gang of rustlers is trailing them. When his cattle drovers abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his drovers in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage; however, neither Andersen nor the boys know that a gang of cattle rustlers is stalking them. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Wil Andersen finds himself with a herd of cattle which he has to get to market before the winter sets in, but he has no men to help him. He turns to a group of young schoolboys as his last hope to get the job done. There is no better training for these boys than hands-on as they don't know what they are in for. They set out as schoolboys but return as Cowboys. —Christopher D. Ryan <cryan@direct.ca>

Silent Running takes place in the not-so-distant future, at a time in which Earth's plant life has been decimated. Only a few specimens of flora have been preserved, and are currently in space in a fleet of orbiting greenhouses. Freeman Lowell (played by Bruce Dern) is the main character, one of four extraterrestrial forest rangers aboard the Valley Forge, one of the 2,000 metre-long green house freighters. He is passionately dedicated to preserving the orbiting forests and their natural inhabitants, and eventual returning them to Earth for reforestation of his now-barren planet more so than his crewmates, whose main priority seems to be returning to Earth after their one-year deployment to space. The main conflict comes when Lowell and his crew are ordered to destroy the orbiting greenhouses and redeploy the freighters to commercial service. Lowell decides to disobey orders and save the forests he has worked so hard to preserve. Lowell's crewmates manage to jettison and detonate four of the six greenhouse domes on the Valley Forge. Lowell kills one of his crewmates in a struggle to save the two remaining domes, during which he seriously injures his leg. He then manages to trap the other two crewmen in the other remaining dome, which he then jettisons and destroys. With help from the ship's three robots, Lowell feigns a premature dome detonation to fool his superiors, then alters the orbit of the Valley Forge , redirecting it towards Saturn in an attempt to preserve the last forest dome. Injured and alone with three robots, Lowell programs them to perform surgery on his leg. Still in communication with the rest of the fleet, Lowell is informed that the Valley Forge is on a collision course with Saturn's rings, and there is nothing he can do to stop the catastrophic event. The ship will likely be destroyed. With communications failing due to the distance now between the Valley Forge and the rest of the fleet, the ship passes through the rings of Saturn. While the three robots are outside the ship on maintenance duty, one is blown away from the ship, leaving two remaining robots. The ship, and its single greenhouse dome, emerge undamaged on the other side of the rings. Lowell and the two remaining robots chart a course into deep space, far away from the fleet. Alone except for his accompanying drones, Lowell befriends them and renames them Huey, Dewey and (posthumously) Louie. He teaches them to play poker, plant trees, and bury the killed crewmember. Lowell soon realizes that despite all his efforts, his forest is dying from unknown causes. In a desperate and rushed attempt to save the dome he badly damages Huey in an accident with one of the ship's buggies. Repairs are unsuccessful, the forest continues dying, and Lowell begins to come to realize that his mission to save the forest is bound to fail. After weeks alone in space, faint radio chatter is heard from a rescue party mounted from the Valley Forge's sister ship, the Berkshire, which has located the freighter after a long search. Finally able to communicate with Lowell, they inform him that they will be able to reach him within six hours he must jettison the dome but not detonate the nuclear charge, as it is too dark to do so safely. At this point it dawns upon Lowell that what was killing the forest was lack of sunlight. With little time to work, he activates a series of lights to simulate the sun and instructs his last active robot, Dewey, to "just maintain the forest." Realizing that his crime will be uncovered when the Berkshire finds him, Lowell jettisons the last dome to safety with the words "take good care of the forest, Dewey." With the Berkshire only two hours away from docking, Lowell and the damaged Huey sit facing each other while he arms the last of the six nuclear charges. As he prepares to destroy himself and preserve the last dome, Lowell says to Huey: "When I was a kid, I put a note into a bottle, and it had my name and address on it. And then I threw the bottle into the ocean. And I never knew if anyone ever found it." With that, Lowell destroys the Valley Forge with the last of the onboard nuclear charges. The final scene is of a well-lit forest greenhouse drifting into space, tended by the sole remaining robot with a battered watering can. The scene is accompanied by Joan Baez's rendition of the film's theme song.

During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his remote 10th Century castle hoping a battle against the advancing Germans will not lead to the destruction of the castle and all within. Toward the end of World War II, a small company of American GI's occupy an ancient castle. Their commander has an affair with the countess in resident. One guy falls in love with a Volkswagon. A baker among them moves in with another baker's wife. A group of shell shocked holy rollers wander the bombed out streets. A GI art historian tries vainly to protect the castle and its masterpieces. —Jim Sadur <jsadur@keyflux.com>

A frontier town in the Old West springs up almost literally overnight when the rather klutzy and hotheaded Prudy Perkins discovers gold in a grave during a funeral. Her father Olly becomes mayor of the new settlement. He and the other members of the town council bemoan the twin facts that the place has become a drunken round-the-clock free-for-all, and that in order to ship out all the gold they are mining, they must pay a hefty fee to the Danbys, a family of ranchers/bandits who control the only route out of town. Most people are too busy digging to take time out to be sheriff, and those who are willing to put down their shovel quickly die. This all changes with the arrival in town of Jason McCullough, a calm and hyper-competent man from "back East" who is passing through town "on his way to Australia." While in the town saloon, he sees young Joe Danby gun a man down, essentially for fun. Needing money after discovering the town's ruinious rate of inflation, McCullough demonstrates his uncanny firearms ability to the mayor and town council, and becomes the new sheriff. He breaks up a street brawl and while at the Perkins house meets Prudy under (for her) mortifyingly embarrassing circumstances. McCullough then arrests Joe and tosses him in the town jail, which has everything a sheriff needs - except iron bars for the cell doors and windows. McCullough keeps the none-too-bright Joe "imprisoned" through the use of a chalk line, some dribbles of red paint, and applied psychology. In the process of all this, McCullough acquires a semi-willing deputy in the form of the extremely scruffy Jake, who was previously nothing more than the "town character." The arrest ignites the wrath of the patriarch of the Danby family; while the rest of the town immediately quiets down under McCullough's reign, "Pa" mounts various efforts to get Joe out of jail. None of them work and he then brings in a string of hired guns, who are equally unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Prudy spars romantically with McCullough, McCullough and Jake go on an unsuccessful search for gold, and, much to Joe's relief, bars are finally installed in the jail. The climax of the film sees Pa Danby summoning scores of his relatives to launch an all-out assault. The sheriff's first impulse is to just leave town and resume his trip to Australia, but when Prudy expresses her sincere approval of this sensible idea, he announces that it sounds cowardly and decides to stay. The rest of the townfolk announce their disapproval of his new plan, and officially vote to not help in any way. Thus the Danby mob rides in faced only by McCullough, Jake and Prudy. After a lengthy gunfight, McCullough bluffs his way to victory using hostage Joe and the cannon mounted in the center of town. As the Danbys are all marched off to jail, the cannon fires, smashing the town brothel and scattering the resident prostitutes and visting civic leaders. McCullough makes his peace with the townfolk, he and Prudy get engaged, and he carries her home. In a closing monologue, Jake directly informs the audience that they get married and McCullough goes on to become governor of the state, while he, Jake, becomes sheriff and then "one of the most beloved characters in western folklore."

In *Hang 'Em High*, the story begins with Jed Cooper, a former lawman, as he drives a herd of cattle across the Oklahoma Territory. His character is demonstrated as he saves a foundering calf from drowning. Suddenly, he is surrounded by a posse led by the vindictive Captain Wilson. The posse accuses Cooper of murder and cattle theft, refusing to believe his protests or examine the bill of sale he presents as proof of his innocence. Swiftly and mercilessly, they decide to lynch him. The men string him up on a tree and leave him to die, abandoning him as a symbol of their rough brand of frontier justice. Yet Cooper's fate takes an unexpected turn when he is found, still barely alive, by U.S. Marshal Dave Bliss. The marshal rescues him, cuts him down, and brings him to Fort Grant, where Cooper is determined to clear his name. At Fort Grant, Cooper appears before Judge Adam Fenton, the sole judge in the territory, known for his firm, no-nonsense approach to upholding law and order. After reviewing the facts and realizing Cooper's innocence, Judge Fenton releases him. However, rather than dismissing Cooper's grievances, Fenton sees an opportunity to recruit him as a deputy U.S. marshal, noting his skill and resilience. Fenton offers Cooper a badge and a mandate to bring criminals to justice under the law, warning him against seeking personal revenge. He urges Cooper to see this as an opportunity to channel his anger constructively, by upholding legal justice in a lawless land. Cooper, still reeling from the trauma of his near-death experience, reluctantly agrees, setting his sights on capturing the men responsible-not out of vengeance, he insists, but to see justice served. Cooper's journey as a marshal leads him across rugged terrain and into dangerous encounters as he pursues the members of the posse who wronged him. He arrests several criminals along the way, grappling with the ethical complexities of frontier justice. Some of the posse members beg for mercy, claiming they acted out of fear, while others remain defiant. His encounters reveal the fragility of law in a place where vigilante justice often prevails. At each step, Cooper is forced to confront his own sense of morality and the fine line between justice and revenge. Although tempted by the thought of exacting personal retribution, he remains committed to his role as a marshal, bringing each man in to face a trial. The tension escalates as Cooper confronts Captain Wilson and the last of his lynchers. The final showdown embodies the central conflict of the film, exploring whether true justice can ever be served in a place where life is cheap and justice often subjective. Cooper's dedication to upholding the law, despite his personal vendetta, ultimately underscores the film's message about the cost of revenge and the harsh, often flawed nature of frontier justice. In the end, *Hang 'Em High* delivers a powerful meditation on the themes of justice, morality, and the toll of vengeance. Cooper's journey is not just one of survival but of reckoning with the violent world he inhabits, as he chooses to abide by the law even when tempted to forsake it. His choice marks him as a figure of integrity in a world where such values are rare, leaving the audience with a nuanced perspective on what justice truly means in the unforgiving landscape of the American West.

Taw Jackson (John Wayne) arrives in his hometown fresh from a three year prison sentence after been framed by a corrupt businessman called Pierce (Bruce Cabot),so that he could take Taw's ranch after discovering gold on the land.When the sheriff tells Pierce that he's back,Pierce tells two of his men to find gunslinger Lomax (Kirk Douglas) for a price offer to kill him.Lomax had shot Taw for Pierce some time earlier but Taw had survived the shooting,leading to Pierce framing him instead. Taw looks for Lomax at the oriental palace saloon.Lomax appears with a gun at his back but Taw tells him he wants to offer him a deal.He found out in prison that Lomax was a safe cracker and he wants him to help him rob the war wagon - an armour plated stagecoach,which Pierce uses to transfer his gold.Once he tells him the plan and his share of the gold,Lomax agrees.Pierce's two men arrive to ask Lomax about the offer to kill Taw and are surprised to see them with each other.They attempt to kill him themselves but Taw and Lomax are ready and gun them down. Taw and Lomax track down indian,Levi walking bear (Howard Keel) and find him in trouble with some Mexican bandits who have him tied up after cheating them at cards.They help him escape and tell him about the job.They need Levi to ask his people to help them out.Taw also recruits Billy Hyatt (Robert Walker), an explosives expert,who also happens to be an alcoholic much to Lomax's worry, and Wes (Keenan Wynn) a greedy old man who works for Pierce and who immedietly dislikes Billy after he sees him trying to get friendly with his much younger wife,Kate (Valora Noland). Pierce meets Lomax at the saloon wanting an answer as to whether or not he will kill Taw.Billy walks in drunk and starts shouting about becoming rich soon.Lomax knocks him out to prevent him from mentioning anything about the robbery and accepts Pierce's offer of 12'000 dollars to kill Taw. At Wes' ranch,Wes gets angry and threatens Billy when he sees him having a friendly conversation with Kate.Taw arrives in time to protect Billy and asks him if he's checked out the bridge that they need to blow up in order to pull off the crime.Because of the short time frame that they have to do the job,Billy wants to use nitroglycerine instead of dynamite and Wes tells them that Pierce stores some in a safe at the ranch. Taw arrives at the saloon looking for Lomax.Lomax walks over to him for a chat but Pierce and his men enter, hoping to see Taw gunned down.Lomax sees them and starts to goad Taw into a fight.As the two prepare to face off,Levi walks in and starts a fight with Taw to cause a diversion.A bar fight breaks out during which,Lomax knocks out one of Pierce's men who he sees trying to shoot Taw.Lomax follows Taw and Levi out of town.Taw tells him he needs him to crack open the safe to get the nitro out.They wait until dark and sneak in to get the stuff. The next morning,Pierce unveils the newly fixed gatling gun on the war wagon and tries it out,while Taw and his accomplices prepare for the robbery.The warrior indian tribe pursue the wagon while the wagon guards fall behind to try and protect it from them.The wagon crosses the bridge,the horses trip the rope that Billy has placed and the nitro explodes preventing the guards from crossing and leaving the wagon isolated with only Pierce and his two men inside to defend it.Taw and Lomax jump on the wagon and Pierce's men decide to bail out.He shoots them both for trying to betray him and dies himself as one of the men fires back.Unable to stop the wagon,Taw and Lomax jump to safety as it crashes into a ravine.They manage to get the gold out and haul it onto the back of Wes' wagon,in the barrels which are filled with flour.However a tribe of Indians surround them and try to take the gold.One of them kills Wes.Billy pulls out a bottle of nitro to pretend it's alcohol,knowing that the Indians will take it from him.After taking a sip,the leader throws it and it explodes.The horses run off with the gold with Taw in pursuit,while Lomax takes cover in the war wagon from the Indians and Billy protects Kate.By the time Taw catches up with the wagon he finds that most of the gold has fallen into the possession of the peaceful Indians,who have assumed it was all flour.Levi joins them and Lomax angrily takes Taw's horse as part of his down payment from the money he owes him.But unknown to him,Taw has recovered some gold and he gives Billy a small amount to start a new life with Kate,until they divide it up properly after the robbery has died down.He tells him to tell Lomax where he got it from if he sees him. Lomax confronts Taw and wants his share of the gold.Taw tells him they'll divide it up in six months and in the meantime he better makes sure nothing happens to him or he'll never see it.

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son. Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a "line-rider" job on a vast cattle ranch requiring him to keep trespassers and squatters moving until they're off the property. Ironically, he discovers that the mountain cabin reserved for the line rider has been appropriated by Catherine Allen and her young son, Horace, whose guide has deserted them en route to Oregon to join Catherine's husband. Too soft-hearted and ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter Rocky Mountains winter sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; lonely man and woman soon forget their considerable dissimilarities and start developing a deep, if awkward and unstated, love for each another. Beyond this, Horace finds in Will the father he's never known, and Will finds in Horace the son he's never known he's wanted. The trio's little refuge is then invaded by Bible-quoting preacher Quint and his murderous family of "rawhiders", who'd earlier nearly killed Will over an imagined insult, forcing Will to defend his own "family". —Alfred Jingle Without a job the solitary middle-aged cowhand, Will Penny, is hired as a line-rider at a vast ranch to watch over the cattle and drive off trespassers from the land. However, the taciturn cowboy comes across the frontier widow, Catherine Allen, and her son, Horace, who have been abandoned by their guide and have taken refuge in his line shack. Much to their surprise, he takes pity on them and gives them a week to move out. But when Will is left for dead in the unforgiving desert by the wandering rawhider, Preacher Quint, and his boys, he will inevitably start rethinking his lonely life, as kind Catherine takes him in, and a quiet affection begins to bloom. Are those unfamiliar and restless feelings powerful enough to forsake a lifetime of solitude? —Nick Riganas