Michael O'Keefe

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.

In an unexplained act of charity, Jeanne Holman, picks up an injured, apparent tramp and takes him home to care for him little realizing who he was, or the effect he would have on her life and those of her family. When Jane Holman is driving with her two sons, Tom and Gunny, she accidentally runs into a drifter, named Jack McCloud, who breaks his leg. Feeling sorry for him, Jane invites Jack and his dog Betty Jane to stay at her house until his leg has healed. After having some difficulties to adapt to this new lifestyle, Jack soon finds himself loved by the family and they all want him to stay. When he starts teaching baseball to Tom, who misses his father who's missing in the Korean War, the two of them develop a strong bond. Meanwhile, Gunny believes that there's more to Jack and Betty Jane than meets the eye, and he's determined to find out. —Peter Huiskes <huiskes@westbrabant.net>

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades. Albany, New York, Halloween 1938. Francis Phelan and Helen Archer are bums, back in their birth city. He was a Major League pitcher; she was a singer on the radio. Death surrounds them: she's sick, a pal has cancer, he digs graves at the cemetery and visits the grave of his infant son whom he dropped; visions of his past haunt him, including ghosts of two men he killed. That night, out drinking, Helen tries to sing at a bar. The next day, Fran visits his wife and children and meets his grandson. He could stay, but decides it's not for him. Helen gets their things out of storage and finds a hotel. Amidst their mistakes and dereliction, the film explores their code of fairness and loyalty. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Two dim-witted New York street peddlers, Jake Bateman (Michael O'Keefe) and Barney Bonar (Paul Rodriguez), have grown tired of the frozen cold. They head to a car place where drivers are hired to transport vehicles. When they are denied driving a Cadillac to Palm Beach, Florida, Jake flirts with the car place owner (Mary Joy) and threatens to eat her goldfish until she agrees, to which she does. Upon arriving in Palm Beach, the duo find themselves accidentally crashing a party held by a rich elderly couple who lost their dog, Ralph. Barney's attempt at befriending a Navy admiral and his wife doesn't go too well while Jake meets Olivia (Lucinda Jenney), an heiress who runs a local orphanage. When Jake and Barney leave to find the Cadillac had been towed, Olivia offers to take them in in exchange for help at the orphanage. Olivia and Jake begin to get a little close when she drops a bomb on Jake. She is to be married to someone her uncle approves. Her uncle will only accept those whom he considers "perfect gentlemen". If she cannot marry in 30 days, she will lose her orphanage to a real estate developer, Strobe, who just also happens to be Olivia's ex-boyfriend who can't seem to let her go. When Jake offers to marry Olivia, she is convinced that Jake is not going to be good enough for her uncle. Upset, Jake turns to Barney, who suggests they go to a charm school run by Henrietta Phelps (Carole Shelley), a well known expert in etiquette. Taking the back route to the school, Jake and Barney are joined by their new classmates whom make up of the nerdy Eddie Lipschitz (Eddie Deezen), aggressive police officer Marsha White (Marsha Warfield), neurotic Shelley (Elizabeth Arlen), Indian man Roy Rajmataj (Andy Bumatai), and Clorinda Antonucci (Karen A. Smythe), the pregnant wife of local Mafia boss Guido Antonucci (Joe Spinell). At first, things don't bode well for anyone in the group. One night, Jake and Barney sneak off to a local bar where they find Henrietta's husband Colonel Phelps (Denholm Elliott). The Colonel reveals he is part of a secret society similar to the Illuminati in terms of learning how to be a perfect gentleman. The duo splits their time between the couple, learning proper etiquette from Henrietta while the Colonel has the boys take mock photos with royal figures and government politicians to make themselves established in high society. Having finished both courses, Jake intends to win back Olivia. However, he must deal with the likes of Strobe (Stephen Davies) and his two right hand men, Whitey and Tipper (Taylor Negron and Greg Germann). To impress Olivia's uncle, Judge Sternhill (Dan O'Herlihy), Barney brings in his friends from the charm school to help Jake. For instance, Officer White gives Barney a machine gun to help Jake shoot skeet successfully with Barney actually pulling the trigger. When at a party, Jake manages to make Strobe look foolish, the Judge is disappointed with both men and suggests a game called "cross courts", the two get Eddie to join in. However, when Eddie unwittingly confesses to Whitey about charm school, the ruse is up and Olivia is forced to marry Strobe. At the wedding ceremony, Jake and Barney sneak in with the help of their charm school friends. Clorinda arrives as an invited a guest and has Jake and Barney be her bodyguard escorts. Officer White distracts the priest and "arrests" him. Roy disguises himself as the priest with Eddie posing as an altar boy. When Strobe unveils the bride, it is actually Barney in a wig and totally embarrassing Strobe. Jake and Olivia finally get Sternhill's approval and Strobe is arrested by Officer White. Jake and Olivia drive off while Barney meets two women coming out of the church. The finale scene sees Judge Sternhill finding Colonel Phelps and they both give off the secret sign that they were both members of the "secret society" that Jake and Barney had become the newest members of.

On the run from the police and a female roller derby team, scam artist Michael Rangeloff steals a coffin and boards a train, pretending to be a soldier bringing home a dead war buddy. On the run from the police and a female roller derby team, scam artist Michael Rangeloff steals a coffin and boards a train, pretending to be a soldier bringing home a dead war buddy. The train ride turns into far more than Michael bargains for. —<rth@ece.arizona.edu> A stolen fortune hidden in a coffin aboard a coast to coast train is at stake. A con-man, his protege, and a foul mouthed actress try to get their hands on the money, but standing in their way is a thief, a senile railroad conductor who is in contact with Richard Nixon, a confused FBI agent, an Army deserter, and an attack dog. —Anonymous

Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) is an underacheving 17-year-old guy who works as a caddy at the upscale Bushwood Country Club in Beverly Hills to earn enough money to go to college. Danny often caddies for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), a suave and talented golfer and the son of one of Bushwood's co-founders. Danny decides to gain favor with Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), the country club's stodgy co-founder and director of the caddy scholarship program, by caddying for him. Meanwhile, Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), one of the dim-witted greenskeepers, is entrusted with combating a potentially disastrous gopher infestation. Throughout the film, he tries a variety of methods to kill the gopher (e.g. shooting, drowning) without success. Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), a brash and obnoxious nouveau riche real estate developer, begins appearing at the club. Smails is heckled by Czervik as he tees off, causing his shot to go badly wrong. Smails throws a putter away in frustration and accidentally injures a member of the club. Danny takes responsibility for the incident, as a ploy to gain Smails' trust. Smails encourages him to apply for the caddy scholarship. At Bushwood's annual Fourth of July banquet, Danny and his girlfriend Maggie (Sarah Holcomb) work as servers. Czervik continues to irritate Smails and the club members, while Danny becomes attracted to Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), Smails' promiscuous niece. Danny wins the Caddy Day golf tournament and the scholarship, earning him praise from Smails and an invitation to attend the christening ceremony for his boat. The boat is sunk at the event after a collision with Czervik's larger boat. On returning, Smails discovers Lacey and Danny having a tryst at his house. Expecting to be fired or to have the scholarship revoked, Danny is surprised when Smails only demands that he keeps the incident secret. Unable to bear the continued presence of the crude-mannered Czervik, Smails confronts him and announces that Czervik will never be granted membership. Czervik counters by announcing that he would never consider being a member: he insults the place and is merely there to evaluate buying Bushwood and developing the land into condominiums. After a brief scuffle and exchange of insults, Ty Webb suggests they discuss a resolution over drinks. After Smails demands satisfaction, Czervik proposes a team golf match with Smails and his regular golfing partner Dr. Beeper (Dan Resin) against Czervik and Webb. Against club rules, they also agree to a $20,000 wager, quickly doubled to $40,000, on the outcome of the match. That evening, Webb practices for the game against Smails and meets Carl, where the two share a bottle of wine and a joint. The golf match is held the following day. Word spreads of the stakes involved and a crowd builds. During the game, Smails and Beeper take the lead, while Czervik, to his dismay, is "playing the worst game of his life". He reacts to Smails' taunts by impulsively redoubling the wager to $80,000 per team. When his own ricocheting ball strikes him, Czervik feigns injury in hopes of having the contest declared a draw. Lou, the course official who is acting as an umpire, tells Czervik his team will forfeit unless they find a substitute. When Webb chooses Danny, Smails threatens to revoke his scholarship, but Czervik promises Danny that he will make it "worth his while" if he wins. Danny eventually decides he would rather humiliate the selfish, conceited Smails than take the scholarship. By the time they reach the final hole, the score is tied. At the climax of the game, with Danny about to attempt a difficult putt to win, Czervik again redoubles the wager to $160,000 per team. Danny's putt leaves the ball hanging over the edge of the hole. At that moment, Carl, in his latest attempt to kill the gopher, detonates a series of plastic explosives that he has rigged around the golf course. The explosion shakes the ground and causes the ball to drop into the hole, handing Danny, Webb, and Czervik the victory. Smails refuses to pay, so Czervik beckons two hulking men, named Moose and Roco, to "help the judge find his checkbook." As Smails is chased around the course, Czervik leads another wild party attended by all of the onlookers at the match, shouting, "Hey everybody! We're all gonna get laid!" In the final scene, the gopher emerges, unharmed, and dances amid the smoldering ruins of the golf course.