Patrick Malahide

Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and trained in the family business, Anna (Maggie Q) is the worlds most skilled contract killer. But when Moody the man who was like a father to her and taught her everything she needs to know about trust and survival is brutally killed, Anna vows revenge. As she becomes entangled with an enigmatic killer (Michael Keaton) whose attraction to her goes way beyond cat and mouse, their confrontation turns deadly and the loose ends of a life spent killing will weave themselves even tighter.

Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, humankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved. Gigantic moving cities now roam the Earth, ruthlessly preying upon smaller traction towns. Tom Natsworthy, who hails from a Lower Tier of the great traction city of London, finds himself fighting for his own survival after he encounters the dangerous fugitive Hester Shaw. Two opposites, whose paths should never have crossed, forge an unlikely alliance that is destined to change the course of the future.

Two Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agents are gunned down while trying to intercept a briefcase exchange taking place in a United Nations (UN) parking garage. The murders are caught on a CCTV camera but the killer escapes with the top-secret information. The person who delivered the money also escapes. Six months later, Senior Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard and his team capture a pair of fugitives in Chicago. His team includes Noah Newman, Cosmo Renfro, Savannah Cooper and Bobby Briggs. Gerard is very close to his team, and they function like a well-oiled machine. Gerard reports to US Marshal Catherine Walsh (Kate Nelligan). Catherine admonishes Gerard for hitting the fugitives while they were in handcuffs, which is against the law. Gerard says that the fugitive was huge and was throwing the team around and this was the only way to bring him under control. At the same time, tow truck driver Mark Warren (Wesley Snipes) is arrested for a weapons violation after a firefighter finds a pistol in his truck after a car accident, enabling the Chicago Police Department to discover he is the federal fugitive Mark Roberts wanted for the double-homicide. Roberts boards a prisoner transport back to New York, sharing the flight with Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), who is escorting prisoners unrelated to Roberts' case. Roberts thwarts an assassination attempt by Chinese prisoner Vincent Ling with a zip gun (which was concealed in the toilet paper handle in the plane's loo), but the bullet pierces the window and depressurizes the cabin, forcing a crash landing. The pilots cannot find any airport nearby and decide to the land the transport plane on a highway. The plane crashes into the Ohio River, and Gerard tries to rescue the surviving prisoners as Roberts escapes. Gerard discovers Roberts has fled the crash site and DSS Special Agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.) is assigned to join Gerard's team to hunt Roberts. They corner Roberts in a Kentucky swamp before he wounds Gerard and flees. Roberts calls his girlfriend Marie Bineaux, explaining that he was a government agent until he was betrayed in New York. Roberts makes it to New York City, secures money, weapons and fake ID. Returning to New York City, Roberts secures supplies from a Force Recon comrade and tracks a Chinese diplomat Xiang Chen (Michael Paul Chan). In Chicago, Gerard and the marshals pursue several leads, including Roberts' girlfriend Marie Bineaux (Irène Jacob) as well as the airplane mechanic who hid the zip gun, the latter of whom the marshals find killed by Chen. Gerard suspects that Royce is concealing information about Roberts and the murders. Gerard and team watch the UN surveillance footage of the murders in the parking garage and realize that Roberts acted in self-defense and was wearing gloves; thus, couldn't have been identified by fingerprints at the scene as was claimed. Confronted with the evidence, DSS Director Bertram Lamb (Patrick Malahide) informs Gerard that "Mark Roberts" is in fact Mark Sheridan, a highly trained covert operative and a former CIA Special Activities Division Agent, that went rogue during an investigation to find the mole within the U.S. State Department that had been selling secrets to China. Sheridan was suspected of selling U.S. State Department classified intelligence to the Chinese government. Chen was delivering money to Sheridan for the information when the DSS agents tried to apprehend Sheridan, who escaped with the documents. Gerard's team tracks Sheridan to a cemetery. The team catches up with Sheridan (and Gerard brings Marie along) in the Bohemian National Cemetery where Sheridan meets with, and threatens to expose, DSS Special Agent Frank Barrows (Rick Snyder) as one of the conspirators who framed him. Chen tries to snipe Sheridan as he leaves the cemetery, but inadvertently kills Barrows instead. Sheridan flees to a retirement home followed by Gerard, Royce and Deputy Marshal Noah Newman (Tom Wood), while Chen is caught and detained by Deputy Marshals Savannah Cooper (LaTanya Richardson) and Bob Biggs (Daniel Roebuck). At the retirement home, Gerard and Royce chase Sheridan to the eighth floor and search for him, room by room. Royce walks in the room of an Emphysema patient where Sheridan jumps on him and the two fight. Newman overhears the fight and walks into the room where he witnesses Royce holding Sheridan at gunpoint. Royce suddenly shoots Newman with his Taurus PT945 pistol and later lies to the team, claiming Sheridan got a shot off and Newman walked into it. Sheridan escapes by jumping from the building onto the roof of a passing Metro-North train. Newman is mortally wounded, and dies during the ambulance ride to the hospital, with a devastated Gerard by his side. After finding empty motion sickness pill containers in a stolen car, Gerard tracks down Sheridan on a freighter bound for Canada. During a brief scuffle, Sheridan gains the upper-hand and grabs Gerard's gun, aiming it at him but then lowering it without taking the shot. Sheridan is then shot from behind by Royce who fires rather recklessly, almost hitting Gerard. The Marshal notices the D.S.S. agent now carries a Glock 22. Sheridan is taken into custody. Gerard begins to suspect Royce may be associated with the mole within the U.S. State Department when Royce hands him the pistol he used to kill Newman (Gerard is tipped off because Royce has filed off the serial number, but he still remembers Royce showing it to him when they first met). Left alone to guard Sheridan's hospital room, Royce wakes Sheridan up, releases him from his restraints and plants a knife to claim an attempted escape and therefore justifiable self-defense in shooting Sheridan. Gerard interrupts Royce before he can shoot a weakened Sheridan with his Glock and tricks him into revealing his status as the rogue agent, before revealing that he has also removed Royce's magazine to disarm him. Royce pulls his concealed backup firearm but is shot by Gerard on warning from Sheridan. After leaving the hospital, Sheridan's charges are dropped, and he is released. Sheridan is exonerated and reunites with Marie, while Gerard and his team depart to drink a toast to Newman.

A prince awakens a princess with a kiss, though she rejects his romantic advances (as she argues that she hasn't even been engaged yet and has missed the entire courtship period) and runs away. The princess says that she has ambition and drive. An American beautician named Joy Miller (Fran Drescher) does odd jobs in the TV industry, performing hair and makeup duties on the Lotto girl before she goes on air for her brief appearance. Joy lives with her parents Jerry (Michael Lerner) and Judy (Phyllis Newman). Judy asks Joy to settle in life and not keeping waiting endlessly for her to fulfill her ambition. Joy is adamant that she will not marry until she meets the right guy. Joy teaches students at a night beauty school (to supplement her income) to groom hair but is put out of business when one of her students accidentally ignites hair spray with his cigarette, eventually leading to the school burning down. Joy ends up being highlighted in a newspaper New York Post article after she helps her students, and the caged animals escape the building successfully. Joy had made several trips inside a burning building, but made sure that she rescues all the animals, including a python that she takes in her handbag. The article is seen by Ira Grushinsky (Ian McNeice), a diplomatic representative of a small Eastern European country called Slovetzia (bordered by Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine), a country she never heard of. Ira has been sent to the United States to find a tutor for the Four children of Slovetzia's President, and, mistakenly thinking that Joy is an academic teacher, offers the job to her. However, she misinterprets his job offer as teaching hair-styling. Although she has never heard of the country, she accepts the job despite her initial hesitation. Ira says that the job pays $40,000 per year. It is only after they arrive in Slovetzia that Ira realizes his error. Ira thought that Joy was a science teacher, and she says that she didn't even pass science in school. By then it is too late, and Joy agrees to keep up the ruse of being a "real" teacher for the time being. The initial meeting of Joy with the President, a dictator named Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton), gets off on the wrong foot. Boris prepares a full military guard to welcome Joy, but she ends up being late for the appointment as she was still busy putting on make-up. Boris warns Joy not to take her job lightly. He wants her to prepare his kids to face the western world and wants Joy to be prompt and efficient. Joy gets along well with his four children Katrina (Lisa Jakub), Karl (Adam LaVorgna), Yuri (Kyle and Tyler Wilkerson) and Masha (Heather DeLoach). Karl is very uptight, like his father, and wants Joy to teach him about the decadent American ways. Katrina is warm and inviting and is open to new ideas and thoughts. Joy teaches them of life outside Slovetzia (like the concept of Democracy, frequent flier miles, risk of cancer due to sun exposure) and helps them gain confidence in themselves. Joy encourages Karl to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, who feels pressured to be more like his father. Katrina tells Joy that all she wants to have is sex (her concept of sex is holding hands and eating ice cream), and wants to date a boy. Katrina says that her marriage is already confirmed to a prince, as per Boris' wishes. Joy encourages Katrina to speak to Boris directly, but he is enraged instead. Boris is adamant that Katrina will have an arranged marriage, as is the custom of their society. Joy frequently clashes with Pochenko, who is disturbed by her fierce independence and the fact that he cannot frighten her. Joy tells Boris that he is only ruling his children by fear and that he needs to earn their respect. Joy's presence in Slovetzia is due to Pochenko's desire to change his reputation among other Western nations as a "beast". His second-in-command, Leonid Kleist (Patrick Malahide) is against Pochenko's "softening" strategy and wants to crush the growing rebellion among Slovetzia's youth. Joy eventually learns that Katrina is in love with Alek (Timothy Dowling), one of the leaders of the youth rebellion. Joy finds Katrina outside the castle, and she takes Joy to a hidden nightclub, where she meets Alex. Unfortunately, Katrina is followed by the castle guards and Alek is captured by Pochenko. Joy secretly helps Katrina sneak to his cell to see him. A summit of visiting emissaries is arriving in Slovetzia to meet with Pochenko, and Joy convinces him that the best way to prove that he is a modern-thinking man would be to throw a party for visiting emissaries during a summit meeting to debut his new image. She encourages him to form closer relationships with his citizens and shaves his mustache. During a trip to a factory, Joy realizes that Slovetzia lacks trade unions and encourages the workers to hold a strike. Joy is put in charge of preparations, and during this time she and Pochenko grow closer. As part of the summit, Boris considers releasing Alek despite Leonid's disapproval. On the evening of the dinner, Joy confesses that she is not an academic teacher, but by this time Pochenko does not care about her credentials, only that she has brought happiness to him and his family. Later, Leonid confronts Joy with the fact that she has been helping Katrina meet Alek. When this information is brought to Pochenko, he argues with Joy on her meddling. Following Boris' decision to keep Alek in jail, Joy informs him that she had set up meetings between Alek and Katrina; he argues with Joy over her meddling in Slovetzia's political affairs. Joy decides to leave Slovetzia for good. Some months pass. Leonid has quietly taken over administrative duties and signing sentences in Pochenko's name. Pochenko, made aware of this fact by Ira, confronts Leonid and strips him of his duties. Pochenko realizes that he has spent many months depressed and discontent after Joy's leaving and decides that it is time to change his ways. Joy is back at home with her parents. She has also been depressed after leaving Slovetzia, but then receives a surprise visit by Pochenko. Boris informs her that he has freed Alek and agreed to hold free elections in Slovetzia. Boris kisses Joy after admitting his feelings for her.

It's suburban Pennsylvania at Christmastime, and '90s mom Samantha Caine is living the life with her wholesome boyfriend and cute kid. She's even in the Christmas parade on TV! But this picturesque life is fairly recent; just 8 years ago, she was found washed ashore nearly dead on a beach in New Jersey, 2 months pregnant with no memories of who she was. Since then, she's made a good life for herself as a schoolteacher, but never stopped trying to find out what happened, hiring a string of PIs to dig into her origins. The latest is Samuel L. Jackson, a.k.a. Mitch Henessey, who's at the lower end of the pay scale. He's checking things out for her and finds a suitcase of her old stuff, but something happens before he can get it to her. Driving an old man home from a Christmas party, Samantha is distracted by his drunken antics and hits a deer, throwing her through the windshield and knocking her out. When she wakes up in the snow, something has clicked - she calmly walks barefoot through a freezing stream and snaps the deer's neck to put it out of its misery, then lays down beside it, leaving the man in the car to burn to death. Back at home, while her sweet boyfriend cooks, she helps him prep veggies by slowly and very badly chopping a carrot. Again, something clicks - and suddenly her knife skills are super badass. This skill comes in handy before long, because an old enemy happened to catch the Christmas parade on prison TV and escaped to take revenge. When he breaks into her house, Samantha shows off her new-found fighting skills and kills him, but not before he blasts a hole in the side of her house. To protect her family, Sam heads off with Mitch to figure out what the hell is going on. The suitcase Mitch found contains a note to a Dr. Nathan Waldman, so they track him down and arrange to meet up, unaware that the government is tapping his phone. On the way to meet Dr. Waldman, Sam discovers that the suitcase has a false bottom, and under it is a disassembled sniper rifle. Muscle memory kicks in, and she easily reassembles it. At the station, they are attacked by a team of agents with no regard for bystanders, but they escape with Dr. Waldman. He fills her in: she's actually a CIA assassin named Charly Baltimore, and everyone thought she was dead until her lil' Christmas parade appearance. Sam and Mitch leave Waldman behind and head out alone to follow up on another lead from the briefcase, a guy named Luke. They spy on Luke and Sam remembers personal details about him, so she thinks they were in a relationship - but that turns out to be a very big mistake. Waldman catches up to warn them, but Luke kills him and WHOOPS they realize that he was a target she'd been surveilling. Newly revealed Evil Luke tortures Sam for info by tying her to a water wheel and repeatedly dunking her in freezing cold water. This shock treatment jolts the final pieces into place, and her Charly persona fully emerges. She frees herself, kills Luke, and she and Mitch get away. Back in a hotel room, she cuts and bleaches her hair, busts out an aggressive smoky eye, and gets some new clothes. Turns out, Samantha Caine was a cover identity to get close to Luke 8 years ago. Meanwhile, another old enemy re-emerges: Timothy, a psy-ops specialist and former lover. Looking for leverage, he kidnaps her daughter Caitlin and takes her to Niagara Falls. Sam, now fully in Charly Mode, uncover more details about the case that led to her near-death - she had unknowingly disrupted a CIA false flag operation designed to secure more funding by detonating a chemical bomb in the city of Niagara Falls and blaming it on Islamist terrorists, down to using the corpse of an innocent middle-eastern man. But there are people within the CIA trying to resurrect the operation, including Timothy. Mitch and Charly head to Niagara Falls, but Timothy catches them and dumps Charly in an industrial freezer with her daughter. She tries to save them by telling Timothy that Caitlin is his kid, but he doesn't care and locks them in. Charly manages to break them out with just kerosene and a baby doll, then frees Mitch. Together they go after the trucks getting ready for the attack, forcing Timothy to launch things early - but a scared Caitlin has hidden in one of the trucks. In a last-ditch effort to stop the attack and save Caitlin, Charly chases down the truck and overpowers the driver, diverting it from town and finally overturning it on the bridge to Canada. Timothy pops up and they fight, but she knocks him into the falls. He may be out of the way, but the bomb is still about to explode and Caitlin is still stuck in the truck. To complicate things, more baddies are coming in a helicopter. She shoots the guys and one of them falls out and gets tangled up in some Christmas lights on the bridge. She gets to Caitlin with 7:30 left on the bomb timer and gets her free. Charly is beaten all to hell and resigned to dying, so she tries to send Caitlin away, but that brave little toaster won't leave. Charly musters her strength just as the helicopter picks up a very not-dead Timothy for a final showdown. Time is running out for Charly to get Caitlin off the bridge, so she uses a ham radio to make a hail-mary call - and a profoundly injured Mitch hears it and comes running. They get Caitlin into the car and Charly tries to cover them from the gunfire coming from the helicopter. She grabs a gun and, using a corpse as a counterweight, rides a string of Christmas lights up so she can shoot Timothy out of the helicopter. She makes it back to the ground and Mitch comes to the rescue at the last moment. They all speed away and into Canada just in time to avoid the explosion, which kills Timothy & Co. and destroys the bridge. Now that she and Caitlin are safe, Charly gets to decide who she wants to be - and she wants to like mostly like Samantha but throw knives like Charly on a cute farm her boyfriend, daughter, and some goats. Emily Winsauer - Adventurelings: The Adventure Movie Podcast