Meg Ryan

Seen only by kids, the Fixies are tiny creatures who mend broken appliances, gadgets and electrical circuits. When one of the Fixies gets a hold of special bracelets that transform him into a super-powered rascal, it's up to his colorful little friends, a young boy and a lab professor to save the day!

A sleazy writer has a chance to redeem himself when he goes to stay with his grandmother and befriends the neighbors. L.A. soft-porn writer Carter Webb is frustrated enough, after his actress girlfriend dumps him, to need a serious break. He decides to spend it with his grandmother, who can't really take care of herself and her Detroit suburb house anyway. Helpful Carter soon overcomes mishaps to bond with the foxy neighbor across the street and her daughters. Helping them actually helps him regain perspective and self-confidence. —KGF Vissers After being dumped by his famous actress/model girlfriend Sofia Buñuel with who he was deeply in love, twenty-six year old Carter Webb, a Los Angeles based soft-core porn screenwriter, decides he needs an extended change of scenery. Instead of his mother going, what Carter decides will be that scenery is to live with who may be his ailing yet eccentric maternal grandmother, Phyllis, in her home in Michigan. Regardless of if Phyllis is truly ill or is only a hypochondriac, Carter figures she could benefit from some long term and constant care. He can still do his work sending scripts to his boss electronically and talking to him about filming issues over the telephone, while he would have a new perspective to start working on a non-porn project he's wanted to write since and about high school. Upon his arrival in Michigan, Carter quickly meets Phyllis' neighbors from across the street, the Hardwickes: husband and wife Nelson and Sarah, and their two children, late-teen Lucy and preteen Paige. Carter ends up making an impression on each of the Hardwicke women. Precocious Paige develops a case of puppy love on her witty older neighbor. Lucy is facing boyfriend issues while trying to deal with negative feelings toward her parents, especially her mother. And Sarah needs a compassionate ear and shoulder on which to lean most specifically about two issues in her life, one in particular about which she cannot talk to any of her family. In turn, his time with the women may give Carter a clearer perspective of his life and his relationship to Sofia. —Huggo Carter Webb, a young soft-core porn writer living in California, has just broken up with by his actress girlfriend. He decides to take a time out and visit his grandmother in Detroit, but the women across the street have a different idea. He meets the Hardwickes who live next door, the mother, the teenager, and the little girl, and they change each others lives forever. —Quinn Devastated over his breakup with his girlfriend, Carter Webb leaves L.A. to stay with his wacky Grandma in her suburban Detroit home, across the street from the Hardwicke family. As Carter struggles to reconcile his own inner conflicts, he is drawn into the pains and loves of the Hardwicke women -- all of whom, in their way, fall in love with Carter, and all of whom, in their way, help him find his way back. —Anonymous

Meg Ryan stars in a true story about Jackie Kallen, the first female boxing manager who successfully broke the gender barrier of the boxing world. The film focuses on the relationship she has with her first boxer, Luther Shaw (Omar Epps) and his successful rise to the boxing championship and the inside dealings of the boxing game. Jackie turns Luther into a prizefighter with the help of trainer Felix Reynolds (Charles Dutton). During the press conference after each boxing win, Jackie is put in the spotlight and she lets fame go to her head. Jackie begins to believe that she is the one who made the boxer what he is today, and that she is doing all the work. This causes trouble between Jackie and the boxer. The boxer wants and gets a new manager. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)

An American assassin, who works for cartels in Latin America, is back in USA. He gets a woman before each job and kills her after. FBI's on to him but are curious about his next big job. Banks is a hit man, the best, usually working for Latin American drug cartels. He picks up solitary women, uses them briefly for a job, then kills them. He's in the Southwest, headed toward Mexico, when he picks up Bennie, a woman leaving an abusive marriage, going to Paradise, Arizona. The film follows three tracks: Banks's slow recruitment of Bennie, the set-up for the hit at a swank resort in Mexico, and the FBI's close pursuit of Banks, whom they want alive in hopes he'll rat out his bosses. Bennie may not be who she seems, and there may be a chink in Banks's tough-guy armor. Guns, money, and a chance at Paradise. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Set in New York City, the film follows three Mozell sisters, who deal with their self-obsessed lives and hang up on others in phone conversations. The eldest sister Georgia (Diane Keaton), age 50, is single and runs a successful women's magazine in NYC. The youngest sister Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), age 34, is also single and a not-very-bright nobody who has just landed her big break as a soap opera actress. Middle child Eve (Meg Ryan), age 39, is an event planner living in Los Angeles with a husband named Joe Marks (Adam Arkin) and their young teenage son Jesse, and spends most of her time worrying that her ailing and cantankerous 79-year-old father, Lou Mozell (Walter Matthau), will die at any minute. Much of the story proceeds around phone calls the three sisters make to each other (rudely hanging up on each other without saying good-bye), and calls that Lou makes to Eve. Eve places Lou in the hospital for tests because he has been having memory problems. He recalls his days writing a screenplay with his wife for a John Wayne movie. His wife, the daughters mother, left them in the 1980s because she no longer loved him and felt she did not make it as a mother. Eve tends to Lou in the hospital, whose senility is becoming more evident. At one point, Lou even comes on to Eve, thinking she is a past love named Cleo. In a flashback to 11 years ago in 1988, Eve remembers when she and her sisters came to visit Lou for Christmas at his house in L.A., and found him in bed with their female dental hygienist. Afterwords, Lou gets sad and says he misses his wife. Eve goes off to visit her mom Pat (Cloris Leachman), asking her to return to Lou, but she is adamant about her reasons for leaving. She does not care that Lou recently tried to kill himself. Eve returns to their house and goes out with Lou to get a Christmas tree, which cheers him up. In the present day, Maddy brings a huge St. Bernard dog to visit Eve. Some hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, Lou wanders out of the hospital back to their old house, and Eve comes to pick him up. In another flashback to six years earlier, Eve remembers Halloween in 1993. She throws a big costume party for her son Jesse, but Lou shows up drunk and ruins the party. He insults her and she throws him out. In the present, Lou has a "mini-stroke" as Eve is dealing with planning a speech Georgia will deliver to a women's group. Georgia suggests to Eve (by phone) that Lou should sign a blank check for their needs because he has plenty of money in the bank, but he refuses. After the mother of a doctor tells Eve that she needs to let go of her estranged mother, Eve goes to Lou and lies that his wife died in an earthquake. He whispers to her, "I won." Eve gathers up all cell phones in her house and puts them in a cupboard. Georgia makes a big entrance at the women's event, then makes a surprising and insincere speech about her father dying, leaving her sisters aghast. She concludes that her generation of women are dealing with the death of their parents as they face their own mortality. Eve gets upset at Georgia and Maddy because she deals with their dad more than them. The three of them then bicker at length. They get a call that Lou has gone into a coma and rush to the hospital. After more tension between the sisters, Eve tells Georgia that she needed her help. The sisters sit by Lou's bed as Eve tries yet again to recall the name of a short blonde actress from the 1950s who always played sad roles. Lou becomes conscious for a second and says, "June Allyson." The sisters are thrilled that he is right, but just as suddenly as he spoke, his heart stops beating. A nurse comes in to find he has no pulse, and he dies before their eyes. In the final scene, some months later at Thanksgiving, the three sisters make turkey, and get into a mild food fight. Eve has another memory of her father, this time dancing with his daughters and wife.

Neighborhood bookstore rivals, Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly, unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the Corner.

In Los Angeles, Seth (Nicolas Cage) is one of many angels who watch over humans and protect them in unseen ways. Seth's main responsibility is to appear to those who are close to death and guide them to the next life. As part of this task, Seth and one of his fellow angels, Cassiel (Andre Braugher), like to ask people what their favorite thing in life was. But despite their daily encounters, they appear to have trouble understanding human beings and their ways. While waiting to escort to the other world a man who will not survive heart surgery, Seth is impressed by the vigorous efforts of the surgeon, Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan), to save the ill-fated man's life and her sincere anguish at her failure to do so. Seth soon becomes preoccupied with Maggie and decides to become visible to her despite his obvious inability to give her many convincing details about himself, such as what he does for a living or even his last name. Despite this, they develop a friendship which soon turns to mutual attraction, although Maggie is already involved with one of her colleagues, Jordan Ferris (Colm Feore), at the hospital. Seth then meets Nathaniel Messinger (Dennis Franz), one of Maggie's patients, who can sense Seth's presence and that of other angels. Nathaniel soon relates to Seth that he, too, had once been an angel but, by way of the free will granted to angels, decided to become human through the process he refers to as "falling". Seth begins to consider exercising this option so that he can be with Maggie in a fully physical and emotional relationship. When Maggie receives a marriage proposal from Jordan, she finds herself having to choose between him and Seth. Having realized that Seth is impervious to injury, Maggie finally confronts him and demands to know who or what he really is, but she is unable to accept the revelation and sends him away. Maggie later talks about Seth with Nathaniel who gradually reveals his own angelic origin. He explains to her why he himself chose to become human and points out that Seth is thinking of doing the same. Seth decides to become human through the symbolic gesture of jumping from the top of a skyscraper. Immediately upon awakening from the jump, he starts to experience all of the human feelings and sensations that he had never been able to understand, beginning with physical injury and pain. Up until this point, Seth's personality and emotions, like those of all the other angels, have been very subdued, but that starts to change. Now human, Seth has to find his way to the hospital to see Maggie, but he is told that she has gone to her uncle's mountain cabin for a break. Penniless and naive, he cannot pay for the journey and ends up getting mugged and having his boots taken from his feet by a gang of roving predators. He eventually hitches a ride to Lake Tahoe and appears, soaked and cold, at Maggie's doorstep. Seeing the split lip and condensed breath coming from his mouth in the cold air, Maggie realizes that he has given up his exalted status for her love. She sees to his wounds and then they enjoy warm, passionate lovemaking at last. The next morning, as Seth is in the shower, enjoying his first sensation of running hot water on his body, Maggie rides her bike to a local store to buy some pears for him. On her way back, happy and fulfilled, she rides her bike with her eyes closed and her arms wide open to the Autumn sunlight and her bright future with Seth. Her happiness is cut short by a truck that catches her by surprise when it pulls out in front of her. Seth senses that Maggie is in trouble and runs to her aid. He arrives in time for Maggie to tell him that she sees the angel who has come to escort her away. Although Seth is no longer able to see the angels, he knows they are there and begs Maggie not to look at them. Maggie tells him that she is not afraid anymore and that when they will ask her what her favorite thing in life used to be, she will say it was Seth. Now grieving and alone, Seth is visited by his former colleague and friend, the angel Cassiel. Cassiel offers comfort and asks Seth if he knew this would happen, would he still decide to become human. Seth answers: " I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One. " Seth mourns for Maggie and begins a difficult adjustment to his new life. The final scene recalls an earlier one with Nathaniel. It shows Seth at the beach where the angels meet every day at dawn to listen to the celestial music. With Cassiel and the rest of the angels watching, Seth expresses his joy in being human and the fact that he has come to terms with his new life by running into the water and playing in the waves. In a rare moment of emotion, Cassiel is seen laughing joyfully for his old friend.

Maggie's and Sam's former partners are in love; she wants revenge and he wants his lost love back, so they work together to break up the happy couple. Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life, Linda, leaves him for a suave Frenchman named Anton. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do; go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, intent on winning her back and waiting until she decides to leave her current lover. What Sam does not count on is being joined several weeks later by ultra hip tomboy Maggie, a photographer and motor-cyclist who is determined to get revenge on Anton, her ex-fiance. Hostile at first, the two of them eventually join forces in an attempt to separate the couple, and ruin Anton's life. However, complications ensue when Sam and Maggie start falling for each other. —Anonymous

The exiled royal doctor to King Charles II devotes himself to helping Londoners suffering from the plague, and in the process falls in love with an equally poor woman. An aspiring young doctor, Robert Merivel found himself in the service of King Charles II and saves the life of a spaniel dear to the King. Merivel joins the King's court and lives the high life provided to someone of his position. Merivel is ordered to marry one of the King's mistresses in order to divert the suspicions of another one of his mistresses. He is given one order by the king and that is not to fall in love. The situation worsens when Merivel finds himself in love with his new wife. Eventually, the King finds out and relieves Merivel of his position and wealth. His fall from grace leaves Merivel where he first started. And through his travels and reunites with an old friend, he rediscovers his love for true medicine and what it really means to be a doctor. —P. Wong <pwong@nt.net>

During the film opening, we see a man, presumably Einstein (Walter Mathau) playing a violin, as another man walks past a poster advertising Boyd's comet. We then see Catherine Boyd (Meg Ryan) with her fiance James Moreland (Stephen Fry). She's working on some math referring to the comet. He comments that she's babbling when she tries to tell him a story. The scene cuts back and forth with a group of elderly men arguing about whether time exists. Meg and James are in his convertible when it develops engine trouble. We see Einstein discussing with his friends (the elderly men), whether there are 'accidents' and he says, "I do not believe God plays dice with the universe." Catherine and James pull into a garage, where Ed Walters (Tim Robbins) is arguing with his boss, Bob (Tony Shalhoub), about the car they hear coming into the shop, what make and model it is and what the trouble with it is, based on what they can hear. Bob sends out Ed to check because he sees the couple and assumes they're "college people" meaning they come from Princeton College. As soon as Ed sees Catherine, he falls for her. James, obnoxiously asks if someone there can work on a British engine, and Ed says, "May I look under the bonnet?" James, reassured by the use of the word 'bonnet' consents. Ed looks at it, looks at Catherie and pronounces, "You have no spark." There's clearly a double meaning here, referring to her relationship with James. James insists, "But what's wrong with it?" and Ed adds, "My guess is that you have a short stroke and premature ignition." He turns to Meg Ryan and says, "Does it ever feel that way?" She replies, "I'm sure I don't know what you mean" but it's clear that she gets the double entendre. Ed says he'll go check with his boss about fixing it, and goes in to tell his boss that he's in love, that time and space stopped, that he could see himself kissing Catherine in the future. Ed tells Catherine that fixing the car will take days, and she uses his phone to call a cab, giving the cab company and Ed her address for the invoice. In the process, she leaves behind a pocket watch. There's a brief moment where you see a hand move the watch under some magazines, but whose hand? And is it an accident? Or deliberate? The theme of accident versus deliberate intervention occurs repeatedly in the film. Ed goes to return the pocket watch and discovers that the address is the home of Albert Einstein, who is Catherine's uncle. Ed helps Einstein and his friends retrieve a badminton racket and in the process befriends them. It's clear to them that Ed likes Catherine. Einstein sees that his niece is unhappy with her fiance and wonders how to help Ed date her. She will only date a very intelligent man, and Ed is an auto mechanic. Ed says, "That's easy, lend me your brain for a couple of days." Einstein gets an idea. Einstein and his three friends hatch a plot to make Catherine think that Ed has developed cold fusion as a way to power a rocket to reach the stars so she'll desire him. They help Ed appear hyper-intelligent, helping him present a paper on cold fusion at a symposium and then helping him pass an IQ test administered by Catherine's fiance. Catherine, as a mathematician, is trying to figure out "Ed's" theory on cold fusion, but she struggles with it. Ed wants to tell Catherine he's a fake, but he can't quite seem to. Einstein and his buddies interfere with Catherine's relationship with James, and encourage Ed. James is presented as a sadistic, sexually cold man who puts Catherine down subtly. Of course, there's always a happily-ever-after ending, even though it takes President Eisenhower's appearance in the film, a convertible, a motorcycle, waltz music, engineered automotive troubles and a comet, to make it all come about.

A widower`s son calls a radio talk show in an attempt to find his father a partner.

While helping his grifter father burgle a house in rural Texas, young Arlis Sweeney watches him murder the entire family, leaving only a crying baby. Fast forward 30 years. Arlis has settled into a bleak routine restocking vending machines on a route that includes "a place to eat, a place to sleep, and a woman" in every dusty roadside town. Into this routine falls Kay Davies, another damaged soul down on her luck and stranded away from home and her abusive ne'er-do-well of a husband. Arlis is going that way and agrees to give her a ride. While the two are at her house, movers arrive to take the furniture, which her husband sold to pay gambling debts. Seeing nothing to remain for after a confrontation with her husband, Kay leaves with Arlis. Arlis and Kay begin to fall for each other. In the middle of a rainy night, a knock on their motel door introduces Ginnie, a young woman who makes her living stealing jewelry off corpses in funeral homes. Pleading car trouble, she leads Arlis to her car where his estranged father Roy, who exudes sleaze and criminality, is waiting with a back full of buckshot. Arlis patches up his father and lets the pair spend the night in his room. The next day, they go their separate ways. As Ginnie and Roy pass an abandoned house, Ginnie remarks that it's the same house that's in a photograph that Kay is carrying with her. Roy realizes that Kay must be the crying baby he spared 30 years ago. Roy hates loose ends. Arlis comes to the same realization, and tries to break it off with Kay, leaving her in the motel room with some goodbye cash while he goes on a business errand from which he doesn't plan to return. Possibly changing his mind, he calls Kay's motel and learns that she left with Ginnie. Judging by the directions that the motel clerk said Ginnie asked for, Arlis guesses that they're headed for the old house. In fact, Roy was setting a trap for him. Ginnie tells Kay that there's a surprise in store for them at the old house. Arlis soon arrives, and after Roy sends the girls out for a walk, he and Arlis have a confrontation. Roy says he can't trust Arlis not to tell Kay that he murdered her family, so one of them will have to kill Kay. Instead, Arlis shoots his father. Arlis finds it too painful to be with Kay, and too painful to try to explain her past to her (she was told by her foster parents that her family died in a car crash). He tells her "Some things, it just don't do no good to talk about." Kay doesn't understand, but realizes that she and Arlis aren't going to make it. As he told her, he's a creature of habit, and she doesn't fit in. Regretfully, they part.

A chance encounter between two college graduates, Harry and Sally, culminates in a short-term friendship. But fate keeps bringing them together, forcing them to confront their feelings.

A San Francisco civilian police detective is forced to work on a series of murders with his former enemy commanding officer while dating his daughter. Jay Austin is now a civilian police detective. Lieutenant Colonel Alan Caldwell was his commanding officer several years before when he left the military police over a disagreement over the handling of a drunk driver. Now a series of murders that cross jurisdictions force them to work together again. That Austin is now dating Caldwell's daughter is not helping the relationship at all. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> At the Presidio, the Army base in San Francisco, a female M.P. was conducting her rounds when she came across the officer's club and the door had been forced open. She went to investigate and was shot. The individuals who broke in got into their car and drove off, and what followed was high speed chase that got both the Army M.P.s and the San Francisco police involved, which ended badly for both. Jay Austin, a San Francisco Police detective, is sent to investigate and he is met by Lieutenant Colonel Alan Caldwell, who was his commanding officer, when he was an M.P. at the Presidio. It seems that Austin tried to arrest an Army officer, but didn't follow procedures, and Caldwell didn't support him, and the murdered M.P. was Austin's partner. A preliminary investigation casts suspicion on the officer Austin tried to arrest. —rcs0411@yahoo.com

A Navy test pilot undergoes a top-secret miniaturization experiment, but his molecular-sized craft is accidentally injected into the body of a hypochondriac grocery store clerk.

This gritty drama opens following two American male high school acquaintances a few years after graduation now suffering from deep anger and anguish over the fact that they are not as successful as they thought they would be. Hancock (Jason Gedrick) is the high school basketball star, that got into college on an athletic scholarship only to lose the scholarship to a better player. Unable to succeed in college based on his academic merit, he returns to his hometown, becomes a police officer and is slowly moving into a middle-class mediocrity with his cheerleader girlfriend, Mary, who is in college and plans to major in the arts. Hancock is still stewing over the fact that he is no longer the sports star and that his girlfriend is not only reluctant to marry him but may end up being more successful than he. Danny (Kiefer Sutherland)is the academic "nerd" that was supposedly destined to be so successful that he earned the nickname "Senator". It was felt by some that one day he would become a decent and just politician. He has returned home with his psychotic wife, Bev (Meg Ryan). After a quick Christmas Eve reunion with his parents, Danny learns that his father is dying. He is unable to come to grips with the fact that while he left town with great expectations, he has returned a poor drifter. He shows a sensitive side even though he has married this trampy, bossy and psychotic woman. His desire to run from his problems again,however, prompts Bev to mock his manhood in front of some of his high school friends at a bar and the two decide to hold up a convenience store perhaps as a means for Danny to prove his manhood or because that is just what "Hollywood white trash" would do. Just then, Hancock, unaware that Danny has returned to town, drives into the store's parking lot arguing with his girlfriend about the future of their relationship. Interrupting the robbery he fatally shoots Danny and wounds Bev. Hancock then suffers something of an emotional breakdown. Danny and Hancock are shown to really have little in common except that Danny once had a crush on Mary and perhaps a repressed crush on Hancock. As other police officers and paramedics arrive on scene, Hancock drives with his girlfriend to an open field where he had previously shared, with his police partner, some of his frustrations. He screams to Mary how he feels he has been lied to while growing up. While it is unclear who precisely lied to him, the film seems to implicate Reagan. The anger that Hancock shows probably stems from how he now perceives the universal achieveability of the so-called "American dream" to be nothing but an illusion! Later Hancock has to personally inform Danny's father that he has killed his son and thus the film ends with bleak social commentary on the limited economic opportunities for small town Americans in the twentieth century.

Officer Frank Dooley (John Candy), a 10-year veteran of the LAPD, is framed for the theft of a television set by two corrupt detectives, Sgt. Rizzo (Don Stroud) and Mel Nedler (who Dooley had actually caught robbing an appliance store). He is dismissed from the force, but escapes criminal punishment at his day in court. The next court case features hapless and nervous defense attorney named Norman Kane (Eugene Levy) attempting to defend a Charles Manson-type white supremacist cult leader named Lawrence Lupik (Glenn Withrow), who threatens to kill him should Kane fail to keep him out of prison. A fearful Kane reveals his ineptitude and the death threat to the judge (Stacy Keach, Sr.), who tells Kane that he will give Lupik "A sentence so long he won't even remember his own name, let alone yours" so long as Kane agrees to find another line of work with a "lot less responsibility". Dooley and Kane meet for the first time when they both apply for work at Guard Dog Security, a low-rent firm run by the gruff "Captain" Clarence O'Connell (Kenneth McMillan) and part of a security guard's union requiring heavy $15 a week contributions that is represented by Clyde Klepper (Jonathan Banks) and Tony Lazarus (Brion James). Becoming licensed armed security guards after a single afternoon of training, Dooley and Kane are made partners by Guard Dog supervisor Maggie Cavanaugh (Meg Ryan) and assigned to night duty at the Carlex Pharmaceutical Company's warehouse. During their first night, after being loudly ordered to take a lunch break by senior guard Bruno (Tom Lister, Jr.), Kane happens upon an armed robbery of the warehouse and quickly calls over the radio to Frank for help, but they prove no match for the thieves (the robbers are Klepper and Lazarus in ski masks) who used machine guns. Kane unwittingly escapes into the "Annex" where Bruno had told them to stay away from as it was guarded by the K9 Patrol (Rottweiler's and Doberman's). In there he is chased by the dogs until Frank shows up and fights them off with unusual tactics, including biting one and punching another. The next day, the pair are berated and fined $100 each by O'Connell for their screw up in not nabbing or identifying the thieves despite their contention that they had machine guns and were wearing ski masks. This leaves them suspicious of the company as they hadn't done anything to warrant the hefty fine (almost a week's pay). When Maggie asks about the meeting afterwards, both men vent their anger about O'Connell (Dooley calls him a jerk while Kane calls him a "Sub-human, moronic, poop head"), only to be informed by Maggie that O'Connell is actually her father. Dooley and Kane then attend a meeting of the union, where after getting turned down in their plea to have the fine revoked and it being revealed that Klepper and Lazarus work for Carlino, Kane pointedly questions union president Michael Carlino (Robert Loggia) about how the union dues each member is required to pay are spent (roughly $4 million per year). After Kane rejects an evasive answer from Union treasurer Lou Brackman (James Tolkan), an enraged Carlino threatens to break Kane's legs should he ever attend another union meeting and then abruptly adjourns the meeting. Over the next few days, Dooley and Kane find themselves assigned to work at a landfill and a toxic waste dump, causing both to come to the conclusion that the assignments are the result of Kane speaking out at the union meeting. At the toxic waste dump, Dooley and Kane listen to a similar story by two burned-out guards about a robbery incident over three weeks ago when they were on warehouse duty and forced to take their lunch break by Bruno which resulted in the warehouse getting robbed while they were away. Convinced something illegal is afoot, the pair track down Bruno at his gym and interrogate him. With the threat of heavy weights crashing down on his head, Bruno confesses that it was O'Connell who had phoned him that night and instructed him to order Dooley and Kane to go to lunch and be away from the warehouse at exactly midnight, but maintains that he doesn't know anything about the robbery. After letting Bruno go, the bumbling duo make a quick escape from the gym while an angry Bruno chases after them on foot. The pair then visit an old friend of Dooley's, a retired thief named Cappy (Tony Burton), who is fishing with other men at a small pier, to get information on Carlino. Upon learning of Carlino's corruption (which cost Kane a weeks pay in bribes for information as Cappy wouldn't take money from Dooley), they bring their suspicions to Maggie, but she rejects them as having no evidence to back them up. An evening or two later, Dooley and Kane meet two loose women at a local bar where they dress up in blue tuxedos and use the women as their escorts to crash a formal dinner party thrown by Carlino in hopes of gathering some evidence. While hiding out in an overheated steam room and eavesdropping on a meeting between Carlino and Brackman in the backyard, they learn of Carlino's use of the union's pension fund to finance dealings with a Colombian drug cartel and his plans to have the money robbed from an armored car, with insurance covering the loss. Fearing an investigation by the insurance company in which he will be the fall guy for turning the funds into cash, Brackman urges Carlino not to go through with the robbery. In response, Carlino instructs Klepper and Lazarus to take Brackman away and dispose of him. Dooley and Kane attempt to save Brackman, but are too late to prevent his murder and instead find themselves framed for his death. At the party, Maggie asks O'Connell about what is happening, he refuses to give her any answer and tells her to stay out of his business. A long chase beings as Dooley and Kane are chased by Carlino's henchmen from the Hollywood Hills and through downtown L.A., and evade them, only to run into the police which their car goes off the road. After hiding out in a porno bookstore and peep show, Dooley and Kane evade the bad cops, Rizzo and Nedler, looking for them by somehow dressing up as outlandish gay couple (Dooley being a 'Divine' lookalike and Kane as a leather-man), the two spend the rest of the night evading the police. In the morning, the cross-dressing duo meet at MacArthur Park with the receptive and amused Maggie where they reveal Carlino's intentions and make plans to prevent the armored car robbery. Kane and Maggie take over driving the truck, while Dooley plans to meet them ahead of the would-be robbers. On the 6th Street Bridge, Dooley has problems with his motorcycle and is forced to hitch a ride with "Cowboy" (Steve Railsback), a wild trucker who eagerly disobeys traffic laws and uses his truck to ram his way through a traffic jam (while hauling VERY flammable rocket fuel). Meanwhile, Kane and Maggie avoid assaults from multiple cars attempting to hold them up. With the Cowboy's help, Dooley is able to arrive in time to save the armored car from a guided missile strike and foil a final attack from Klepper and Lazarus with his illegal .50 caliber handgun (Dooley tells The Cowboy that they only used the gun to hunt Buffalo "up close", and that its only legal in two states, but California wasn't one of them). O'Connell, a willing partner of Carlino's, no longer willing to abide the scheme after Carlino threatened to hurt Maggie if he didn't co-operate with the robbery, arrives having captured Carlino and his associates, the two detectives (Rizzo and Nedler) who originally framed Dooley and had him thrown off the police force. The criminals are arrested and the Police Chief (Bruce Kirby) invites Dooley back to the police force as a plain clothed detective... along with a reluctant Kane who wants to go back to the relative safety of being a lawyer.

After exposing a pair of con artists with his partner Melanie (Candy Clark) in the infamous 112 Ocean Avenue house in Amityville, Long Island, New York, recently divorced Reveal magazine employee John Baxter (Tony Roberts) purchases the haunted house after being persuaded to by real estate agent Clifford Sanders (John Harkins). While preparing the house for John, Clifford goes into it alone and, hearing footsteps in the attic, goes upstairs to investigate and is locked in the room, where he is swarmed by flies and is found dead of a presumed heart attack or stroke by John. Thinking nothing of Clifford's death, even after Melanie shows him some photos she took of the real estate agent before his death which depict him as a rotting corpse, John moves into the house and lives there, adamant that the house is normal and telling Melanie to later meet him there. While John works (and experiences elevator trouble presumably caused by the house from afar) Melanie goes to the house and makes her way inside, eventually finding the maid and is spooked; the maid leaves shortly afterward. Left alone, Melanie goes down into the basement to check the fuse box when she feels a strange breeze; frightened, she heads back upstairs when the door to the basement flies open on its own and blasts her with an Arctic gale. She is found later that night by John, cowering and hysterical against the wall. Her attempts to convince John that something is inside the house falls on deaf ears. Later, while looking over blowups of the photos of Clifford, Melanie discovers a demonic-looking face in the pictures and rushes to reach John, but crashes her car and dies when the photographs burst into flames and burn her to a charred skeleton, the car going up in flames shortly afterward. Melanie's death is ruled accidental by everyone, including John, who remains oblivious to the evil in his home. While John is away one day his daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) and her friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) (who is obsessed with the history of the house, claiming it was built on an Indian burial ground) take some boys to the house and use a Ouija board in the attic, but stop the game when the board tells them Susan is in danger before the glass they were using smashes itself against the wall. Susan's friends assume she was playing a prank. Growing bored, Susan and the others go out in John's motorboat while Susan's mother Nancy (Tess Harper) searches the house for her daughter, who walks in the door drenched moments later. After Nancy calls out at her, Susan turns and smiles at her, then ignores Nancy and makes her way upstairs, locking herself in her room. Outside John arrives with groceries and, seeing a commotion on the docks, goes to see what is wrong and finds Susan's lifeless body being tended to, her friends telling him she fell out of the boat. When Nancy arrives at the scene John tells her what happened, causing Nancy to go into hysterics and tell him she saw Susan in the house moments ago before rushing back inside, convinced Susan is either still there or will be shortly, refusing to leave, even for Susan's funeral. After having nightmares about the old well in the basement (a supposed gateway to Hell) John, unable to deal with Nancy's delusions that Susan is still alive, consults his friend Doctor Elliot West (Robert Joy) about what he should do. West suggests that John allow him and a team of paranormal investigators to set up in the house, to help prove if Nancy actually saw something or not, which John agrees to. As Elliot, John and the team wait, Nancy sits by Susan's bed and is soon confronted by a spectral being speaking in Susan's voice, which goads her into following it into the basement, where the old well has filled with liquid. Following Nancy and the being, John and Elliot begin trying to goad whatever is in the well to reveal itself and let Susan (who they believe can come back) go. While near the well Elliot is burned and dragged into the depths by a demon and Susan's specter disappears as John and Nancy flee upstairs, telling Elliot's team to run. As the house quakes and starts coming apart, freezing on the inside, most of Elliot's team is killed by flying and exploding objects while John and Nancy and several others escape out a window just before the house blows up. While the remaining paranormal investigators flee, John and Nancy watch as the rubble of the house burns to the ground and the old well bubbles ominously. A fly is later seen emerging from it and disappears.

In the opening scene, in the year 1958, we are introduced to two best friends and Smith College roommates, Liz Hamilton (Jacqueline Bissett) and Merry Noel Blake (Candice Bergman). Liz helps Merry pack her things and sneak away in the middle of the night where Merry decides to marry her boyfriend Doug Blake (David Shelby) and leaves the school permanently, even though Doug dated Liz in the past. Ten years later. In 1968, Los Angeles, California, Liz is a famous writer and Merry and her eight-year-old daughter, Debby (Nicole Eggert), listen to a talk Liz gives at a Southern California college campus rally. Afterward, Liz attends a party thrown in her honor at Merry and Doug's beach house in Malibu. Soon, Doug and Liz walk on the beach and she admits to a failed love affair with a Frenchman and a bout of writer's block. When they return, Merry is jealous of her best friend leaving the party with her husband but it doesn't last long. A little later, Merry says she admires Liz's success, while Liz envies Merry's marriage and family, her money and the nice things that she can afford. Soon, Merry shows Liz a novel she has written called 'The House by the Sea' about all the people she knows in the beach colony. When Merry reads the manuscript out loud to her, Liz tells her the book is terrific. Merry is doubtful, but then asks Liz to give the manuscript to her editor Jules Levi (Steven Hill). Merry's request triggers Liz's sense of competition; she tells Merry that Jules is only interested in publishing serious literature, and Merry hasn't suffered enough for her art. Meanwhile, Liz admits to Merry that writer's block prevents her from finishing her second book. Nevertheless, Liz convinces Jules to buy Merry's book. Seven years later. In 1975, Dick Cavett interviews Merry about her books on his talk show in New York City. While Merry's career gains momentum, Doug's is stalled and in the middle of their love making, she jots down notes for her next novel. When Merry returns to bed, Doug's passion is long gone. Later, in the middle of Merry's television interview with Merv Griffin, Doug walks over to Liz's apartment and tells her he wants to relocate to New York and rekindle their relationship. Merry shows up at Liz's and fights with Doug about his failing career and their marriage. He calls her "books trash" and storms off. At Central Park, Doug tells Liz he did not get a job offer in New York but he has a job interview in Houston, Texas, and they could have a future together. When Merry meets them at a park, Doug walks off and leaves it to Liz to tell Merry that her marriage is over. Six years later. In present day 1981 New York City, Liz is one of the judges of the National Writer's Award and Merry lobbies to get her new book, 'Home Cooking,' nominated to win an award. Chris Adams (Hart Bochner), a 22-year-old reporter from Rolling Stone magazine, meets Liz at the Algonquin Hotel to do a story on her. Before the interview begins, Merry's troubled and estranged daughter, Debby (now played by Meg Ryan), pays a short visit with her trouble-seeking Puerto Rican poet boyfriend, Ginger Trinidad (Daniel Faraldo). When Merry arrives, she wants Liz to tell her if her book has been nominated. When Liz remains silent, Merry invites Liz to a literary party. Liz notices an attraction to Chris as she sits down for her Rolling Stone interview. In the morning, Liz leaves for her country cottage in Connecticut, where Chris joins her and they consummate their relationship. Liz brings Chris to Merry's party and Merry congratulates Liz for falling in love, but Liz is jealous when she sees Chris talking to Debby. Later, Liz and Chris talk about being in love but she is too scared to accept his marriage proposal. When Liz visits Merry at her suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Merry tells her Doug is in town and her instincts tell her that they will get back together. Merry also envisions winning the National Writer's Award. When she senses that Liz has doubts about Chris, Merry gives Liz her blessing. She tells her friend there are no guarantees when it comes to relationships. Back at her hotel, Liz worries when she is unable to reach Chris. On the way to lunch with Doug, Merry wants Liz to tell her if she's won the award. Liz reveals the judges have awarded the top prize to two writers: Merry and Sharon Gay. Later, Liz meets Chris at a coffee shop and finds out that he has saved Debby's boyfriend, Ginger, from going to jail. After the ordeal, Chris invites Debby to be his assistant on his next writing assignment and Liz realizes that her relationship with Chris is over. She asks him not to publish her interview. Meanwhile, Merry visits Liz at her hotel and accuses Liz of being in love with Doug and the one he is going to marry although Doug has told Merry he plans to marry a woman from Texas. The friends fight, ripping apart a treasured childhood teddy bear that Merry gave to Liz when she left college. Later, Merry watches the Awards party at her hotel suite apart from the revelers. She grabs a bottle of champagne and takes a taxi to Liz's cottage. In the final scene at the cottage, as Liz and Merry sit beside a lit fireplace, Merry apologizes for their fight, and Liz responds that no matter what has happened between them, they've always been great friends and that despite their complicated lives, they will always have each other. Liz suggests that they take a year off and travel together. While it's a scary thought for Merry, Liz tells her to be spontaneous and see what happens. The clock chimes midnight and Liz wants Merry to give her a kiss. Merry asks Liz if, after all these years, she is gay. "No", says Liz, she just wants a New Year's kiss. They hug and Liz gives Merry a peck on the cheek. Afterward, the two friends smile and toast each other by the light of the fire.