Danny Nucci

Sometimes you find out that the love you left is the only one you really want -- no matter what.

John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger), code named "Eraser", is a U.S. Marshal who works for the Federal Witness Security Protection Program (WITSEC). John specializes in "erasing" high-profile witnesses: faking their deaths and giving them new identities. U.S. Marshal Robert DeGuerin is John's mentor. WITSEC has 14,600 witnesses under their protection program. John erases mobster-turned-informant Johnny Casteleone (Robert Pastorelli) and his wife. In the process, John saves Johnny and his family from being killed by mob agents who wanted revenge against Johnny for turning informant. John is given a new assignment by his superior U.S. Marshal WITSEC Chief Arthur Beller (James Coburn). John is assigned to protect Lee Cullen (Vanessa L. Williams), a senior executive for Cyrez Corporation, a company that creates and manufactures weapons for the military. Lee has come across plans by Cyrez to sell a top-secret electronic pulse rifle to Russian terrorist Sergei Ivanovich Petrofsky (Olek Krupa). The sale of such weapons of unparalleled firepower to the wrong hands would tip the balance of power. To procure evidence, Lee copies critical data onto two discs: one for the FBI, the other as evidence in order to publicize Cyrez's transgressions. She hides the 2nd disc in her compact in her purse. However, William Donahue (James Cromwell), the corrupt CEO of Cyrez, catches wind of Lee's intentions and orders her into his office. Donahue confiscated her camera and aims the gun at Lee but commits suicide in order for him to escape punishment, and Lee barely escapes from Cyrez. Disappointed with the FBI because of failure to guarantee her safety, she delivers the evidence (The first disc) but refuses to submit herself to WITSEC, despite John's advice. The FBI's disc is secretly replaced with a fake on the orders of Under Secretary of Defense Daniel Harper (Andy Romano), the conspiracy's mastermind. Lee goes home and tries to open the 2nd disc on her computer, raising an alarm at Cyrez, who inform somebody named Morehart, that Lee is trying to access the data on the disc. The data is encrypted and can only be opened on specific computers as it requires a hardware Decryption. The same night, Lee is targeted for assassination by a group (led by "J. Scar" (Mark Rolston) the mercenary leader) wielding a couple of the aforementioned pulse rifles. The rifle has extraordinary capabilities such as an X-Ray vision and an ability to shoot through solid walls. John rescues Lee and takes her to New York City to hide her. Lee tells rescue that Cyrez was contracted by the military to scale down the Navy's Rail gun system and make a compact, hyper-velocity pulse weapon. Cyrez took millions in R&D grants from the military, but eventually said that the physics were impossible. It is likely that Cyrez found a higher bidder for the guns and hence wanted to hide them from the military. Morehart reports to Daniel Harper that Lee is alive and has a copy of the disc. Daniel orders Morehart to get the disc back at any cost. Morehart also adds that Lee called a woman named Claire Isaacs (Roma Maffia), a reporter for the Washington Herald. Soon afterwards John learns from his mentor, fellow Marshal Robert DeGuerin (James Caan), that someone, perhaps a mole within the WITSEC, is targeting witnesses in top-level cases, including Lee. They (including Marshals Calderon (Nick Chinlund), Schiff (Michael Papajohn), and new recruit Monroe (Danny Nucci)) proceed to the location of one of the targeted witnesses. DeGuerin and John kill several men inside the witness's cabin, who seem to be there to kill the witness, just like DeGuerin said it was. Turns out the men were working for DeGuerin, and he sacrificed them to lure John into a false sense of danger to the witnesses. But then, DeGuerin kills the witness personally, revealing himself as Donahue's U.S. Marshal mole and a major player in the scam, which includes even Undersecretary of Defense Daniel Harper, the true mastermind. John cannot understand why 5 assassins were sent to eliminate one woman. Schiff "finds" a photo of Lee on one of the assassins and alerts John. John says that Lee is an Atlanta, as he could sense that this was a ruse for DeGuerin to get John to divulge Lee's location. Flying back to Atlanta, DeGuerin drugs John, who manages to warn Lee on phone before losing consciousness. Lee was instructed to leave the safe-house and wait for John by a pay phone a few blocks away near the city zoo. The warning call is traced to New York City and DeGuerin kills Monroe with John's gun, framing him as the mole. Revealing he, Calderon, and Schiff are corrupt, DeGuerin explains that they are the go-between for a wealthy buyer who plans to purchase the rifle. John escapes from the plane to rescue Lee from the same mercenaries who tried to kill her before. John and Lee flee through New York City Zoo; John releases several alligators to trap and kill the mercenaries. DeGuerin has John and Lee branded as fugitives. With help from Johnny, John and Lee infiltrate Cyrez and use Donohue's terminal to Decrypt Lee's second disc. The disc reveals that a huge shipment of EM rifles has been stashed at the docks in Baltimore. The buyer is Russian Mafia boss Sergei Ivanovich Petrofsky, who plans to resell the weapons to terrorists. The company detects the intrusion, pinpoints their whereabouts, and remotely erases the disc. DeGuerin then kidnaps Lee and takes her to the docks as the shipment is being loaded onto Petrofsky's Russian-flagged freighter. Johnny contacts his mobster cousin, Tony Two-Toes (Joe Viterelli), who controls the docks; angered that he's being cut out of the deal, he has his men assist John. They kill Petrofsky, his henchmen, Calderon, and Schiff. In a struggle atop a shipping container, DeGuerin tries to shoot Lee, but John comes to her aid and destroys the pulley system on the container crane, dropping DeGuerin and the container to the ground and exposing the presence of the EM rifles. John secures DeGuerin, leaving him to be detained by the authorities. This proves John and Lee's innocence. Weeks later, DeGuerin, Harper, and Morehart are indicted for treason. However, it quickly becomes clear that without solid evidence, they will likely be acquitted in court. For their safety, John fakes his and Lee's deaths in an explosion. After being liberated, DeGuerin, Harper and Morehart (Gerry Becker) leave in a limo that stops at a railroad crossing. The driver - a disguised Johnny - locks the doors and exits the vehicle. Seconds later, a massive freight train plows through the car, killing the three men in a staged accident. Lee asks John what happened, to which he responds, "They caught a train". They then drive off for a new life.

Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke) is a young teenage boy living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., who experience vivid dreams about flying through clouds and over a vast, city-like circuit board, usually after falling asleep watching 1950s sci-fi movies (The War of the Worlds (1953) is a favorite). Every night, upon waking from the dream, he draws the circuit board. Ben shows the sketches to his friend, child prodigy Wolfgang Muller (River Phoenix). At school, Ben develops a crush on Lori Swenson (Amanda Peterson), but he isn't sure whether it's mutual. Both boys meet punkish-but-likable Darren Woods (Jason Presson), with whom they share their circuit-board concepts. Wolfgang builds an actual microchip based on Ben's drawings. The chip enables the generation of an electromagnetic bubble which surrounds a pre-determined area. As the boys discover, the bubble is capable of moving at near-limitless distances and speeds without the usual effect from inertia. They construct a rudimentary spacecraft out of an abandoned Tilt-A-Whirl car; they named their ship the Thunder Road, after Bruce Springsteen's song of the same title. Their experiments with the Thunder Road draw attention from the United States government, which sends agents to scout the area for UFOs. After Ben receives more dreams about the circuit board, Wolfgang discovers a means of producing unlimited sustainable oxygen; this means longer flights, whereas previously they were limited to whatever a typical oxygen tank could hold. They finalize their plan to explore the galaxy in search of alien life. The boys complete liftoff, despite interference from the authorities (one of whom silently wishes them well). Shortly after breaking Earth's orbit, something overrides the boys' personal computer-controls. The Thunder Road is tractor-beamed a much larger spaceship. They boys venture out to meet their captors, Wak and Neek; two green-skinned aliens whose knowledge of Earth comes almost entirely from junk culture, particularly television reruns. The young explorers develop a relationship with their extraterrestrial hosts, but the alien spaceship is intercepted by a larger-still alien vessel. Feigning an attack by space pirates, Wak urges the boys to leave. They are in the process of doing so when they are interrupted by a gigantic brown extraterrestrial, this one bearing a close resemblance to the other two, who gestures furiously while grinding out barely-comprehensible alien language. As this turns out, Wak and Neek are brother and sister; they have taken their father's ship out for a joy ride, sending the dreams to the boys in the hopes of meeting humans. Transmissions of old black-and-white movies have kept extraterrestrial populace at a distance -- except for the curious Wak and Neek -- due to the way humans generally depict violence toward alien life. Wak and Neek's father allows the Thunder Road and its crew to depart, after Wak and Neek give the boys a parting gift: an amulet which, according to the extraterrestrials, is the stuff that dreams are made of. The boys succeed reaching safely back to Earth, but a malfunction results in them crashing the Thunder Road into their neighborhood lake. Now they are back to square one... or so they think. A week later, Ben has a dream at school in which he envisions another vast circuit board while flying though more clouds overhead. This time -- thanks to Wak and Neek's amulet -- Ben is joined in the dream by Wolfgang, Darren and Lori. They proclaimed that the circuitry is really complicated, and wonder where this one will take them once they have constructed this. Lori smiles at Ben while holding his hand.