Carlos Jacott

In January 2000, Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) is promoted to VP of Communication for his company, Globodyne. He convinces his wife Jane to quit her job as a travel agent to spend more time with their son Billy, as Dick's salary would be able to cover their expenses. Soon after, he is asked to appear on the show Money Life, where host Sam Samuels and then independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader dub him and all the company's employees as "perverters of the American dream" and claim that Globodyne helps the super-rich get even wealthier. Dick discovers that his CEO covertly sold 80 percent of his shares in the company. As they speak, the company's stock goes into a free-fall and is soon worthless, along with all the employees' pensions, which are in Globodyne's stock. Dick tries to confront CEO Jack McCallister, but he smugly dismisses his former employee and flies away in a helicopter. Dick arrives home to find his excited wife Jane (Tea Leoni), who informs him that she took his advice and quit her job in order to spend more time with their son Billy (Aaron Michael Drozin). Dick has to break the news over dinner, instantly alarming Jane. Dick tries to think positively and tries for a few months to get a Vice President job at other corporations. However, he soon finds that Globodyne's collapse has sent the overall economy into a recession, dashing any hope of finding a lucrative new position. In addition, the television interview has tarnished his reputation as being incompetent, rendering him not suitable for hiring in his field of profession. After getting no job anywhere, Jane reveals that they'll end up declaring bankruptcy in the next couple of months. Even worse, Jane discovers that, because their pension and all their savings and investments were tied up in Globodyne's now-worthless stock, the family now has no assets and can no longer afford their mortgage payments. After coming to terms with the prospect of being poor, Dick and Jane both apply for low-paying jobs. Dick and Jane get jobs as a retail associate and a workout instructor, respectively, but Dick is fired for harassing an elderly customer and Jane is dismissed after unintentionally assaulting a client. Their utilities are soon cut off, and the couple have no choice but to pawn their valuables to their maid and take illegal off-the-books employment. This results in Dick being deported to Mexico by federal immigration officers and having to sneak back across the border while Jane suffers a severe allergic reaction while testing makeup. The last straw comes when the bank sends them an eviction notice. Dick turns to crime and persuades his wife to help him. Dick borrows Billy's squirt gun and decides to rob a local convenience store but loses his nerve and merely gets away with a slushy. After several failed attempts, they finally rob a head shop. Realizing that they get a thrill out of stealing, they begin going on nightly robbing sprees. They climb their way up the crime ladder, becoming more professional with each passing night, even stealing from people who wronged them during their job search, and eventually steal enough money to redeem the loans on their house and car, both of which were on the verge of repossession. Dick and Jane's last "job" is to rob a local bank by going undercover as corporate security personnel. All goes as planned, until another couple who used to work for Globodyne, Oz (Carlos Jacott) and Debbie Peterson (Stephanie Weir) make an amateurish attempt to rob the bank at gunpoint. The Petersons are arrested almost as soon as they appear, while Dick and Jane escape, unharmed, though without any money. Watching a news report on the arrests of the Petersons and other former Globodyne employees who desperately turned to crime, the Harpers decide to cease their criminal lifestyle. However, Dick finds that his interview with Ralph Nader has caused him to be indicted for his unwitting role in the company's collapse. While drowning his sorrows at the local bar, Dick encounters a drunk Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins), the former CFO of Globodyne, who reveals that the company's crooked CEO, Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin) siphoned off all of Globodyne's assets, then dumped the entire stock, thus ruining the company while getting away Scott-free with a $400 million fortune. Bascombe, who is going to jail for his role in the collapse, got a $10 million bribe from McCallister to keep his mouth shut. After learning about McCallister's scheme, Dick and Jane decide to get revenge, with Frank's help. He tells them that McCallister plans to transfer his $400 million in bearer bonds to an offshore account in the Caymans. All Dick and Jane have to do is intercept the transfer from inside the bank and substitute a fake, transferring the funds to another account. Things go wrong when Dick accidentally loses the form, forcing him to print a new one in the bank while McCallister is there making the transfer, with Jane making the switch. McCallister realizes there are errors on the form and spots Dick. Finally, Dick holds McCallister discreetly at gunpoint, demanding he sign a paltry check, which he does. Knowing that Dick's threats are empty, McCallister mockingly cuts him a check for $100 and leaves the bank. Dick reveals to Jane it was a ruse to get his signature, so Jane (who studied calligraphy in college) can forge it. The next day, as McCallister leaves his mansion, he is mobbed by reporters and former Globodyne employees, all praising him for his generosity. Dick appears and hands him a prepared statement. Reading it on live television, McCallister is shocked to announce that "he" transferred $400 million to a trust fund to support Globodyne's defunct pension plan, in gratitude to all his former employees. As Dick and Jane lead the cheers from the crowd, there is nothing McCallister can say without revealing his own fraud. A news report later shows Dick and Jane delivering pension fund checks to former Globodyne employees (including the now-imprisoned Oz and Debbie), while reporting that McCallister's net worth has been reduced to just $2,238.04. The film ends with the wealthy Harper family driving along the highway in a Volkswagen and into the sunset. While Billy is teaching his parents Spanish words, a Bentley drives up to them. In the car is Dick's friend Garth (John Michael Higgins), who tells Dick he's got a great new job at a company called Enron.

There is a biological emergency...so bad that the Center for Disease Control has interrupted Dr Sheila Casper's [Dina Meyer] field research in the bat caves of Skull Valley, Arizona to fly her to Gallup, Texas. Six days ago, two genetically-altered flying foxes broke free from Dr Alexander McCabe's [Bob Gunton] research laboratory. At first, they killed only animals, but now they've begun feeding on humans. Sheila Casper, a wildlife zoologist who specializes in bats (Chiroptera), has been called to help find the pair before they kill more humans or contaminate other bats in the area. Aided by Sheriff Emmett Kimsey [Lou Diamond Phillips] and CDC specialist Dr Tobe Hodge [Carlos Jacott], Sheila and her assistant Jimmy Sands [Leon] begin to search for the bats' roosting area. The first night out, Emmett and Sheila are attacked by a horde of them. They are able to capture one of them and plant a homing device under its skin. When they set it free, however, hoping that it will lead them to the roost, it is attacked and killed by the other bats, as though they knew it was a plant. Apparently, these bats have been bred for super-intelligence. Gallup must be evacuated, and the mayor is told to broadcast a warning to all residents to stay indoors and secure their houses. Unfortunately, no one listens. The bats invade the town and, within minutes, people are grabbing guns and shooting at anything that moves, cars are being smashed up and bursting into flames, and victims lay in the street dying. Tobe Hodge is one of them. More help is required. The military arrives and begins evacuating the town. They give Sheila and her bat hunters 48 hours before they start blowing things up. Sheila sets up headquarters in the most easily secured building in Gallup--the school. The military has promised to center the infrared cameras of a Chromo-B340 satellite on the area around Gallop to help locate the bat roost. Even when the roost is located, however, how are they going to annihilate every last bat? From the numbers they saw the other night, there are thousands of them. Bombing the roost will only scatter them, Sheila explains, leading to the creation of other roosts and potentiating the problem. Poisoning them is not an option, as the most popular bat poison (chlorofoccinol?) is only marginally effective against bats but highly lethal to humans. Sheila thinks the best solution is to put them to sleep by lowering the temperature in the cave. At 40 degrees F, bats begin to hibernate. At 32 degrees, they freeze to death. Jimmy arranges for an NGIC Industrial Coolant that uses freon, carbon dioxide, and oxygen to be dropped off as soon as the roost is located. When the spy satellite begins sending pictures of the bats, Emmett recognizes the area as that of the old Black Rock mine. Everything is set to begin at 0600 hours. Except that the government has other ideas, which don't include waiting until dawn. During the night, they wire the mine with explosives. Unfortunately, the bats kill them all then come for McCabe, their creator, who still has a modicum of mind control over them. The bats want their freedom. When Sheila et al arrive at the mine the next morning, they are informed by the military that they weren't able to turn on the coolant unit, so the plan now is to bomb and gas the mine starting in one hour. Sheila decides that one hour is enough time for them to get the coolant unit started, so she and Emmett suit up and enter the mine. Jimmy stays outside to monitor their progress and to blow up the mine entrance should it become necessary. Although they find themselves up to their waist in bat guano, they are successful at starting the coolant. As they make for the exit, the bats begin to pursue. Run, run, run! The moment they exit, Jimmy detonates the explosives. As they drive away, an escaped bat lifts its head out of the sand on the road. The car runs it over. Splat. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl]

A bunch of guys hang around their college for months after graduation, continuing a life much like the one before graduation. After college graduation, Grover's girlfriend Jane tells him that she's moving to Prague to study writing. Grover declines to accompany her, deciding instead to move in with several friends who, like him, can't quite work up the drive to escape their university's pull. Nobody wants to make any big decisions that would radically alter his life, yet none want to end up like Chet, the professional student who tends bar and is in his tenth year of university studies. —James Meek <james@oz.net> Grover, Max, Otis, and Skippy, all 22-year-old friends, have just graduated from college. Otis is headed for graduate school in Milwaukee, and the three others should be starting their real post-school lives, but even if they had any plans, they're all having difficulty leaving the comfort of their friendship in this artificial environment of school, so they might just end up like their older acquaintance Chet, who believes that his career is at a student in this college; for the last decade he has been refusing to graduate and bartending at the townie hangout to pay for his life. Their next year to the September of the following calendar year is told. The previous year in aspiring writer Grover's life is also shown in flashback in relation to fellow English major Jane; the two had been been planning to live together as a couple after graduation. —Huggo