Raymond Cruz

To save his brother from the hands of narcos in Medellin, Reda gathers a team to raid the kidnappers in Colombia.

Ignoring the warning of a troubled mother, a social worker and her small kids are soon drawn into danger. Their only hope against La Llorona`s wrath is a disillusioned priest.

The two 'most wanted' cowboys in the New Mexico territory ride into Corazon for one last job - to rob the ruthless town boss.

Modesty Blaise (Alexandra Staden) is working as a croupier in a casino in Tangier. Modesty believes that the house always wins and that every person is born with a certain amount of luck. Modesty believes in saving her luck for when she needs it. The casino did not mind people getting lucky and winning large bets, when Modesty was asked to step in when a customer became greedy. Modesty was very fond of her employer Henri as he had taught her how to fleece a customer and reel him in. Making the customer win on small bets to make them feel lucky and then reeling them in on the big bets to clean them out. Raphael Garcia (Raymond Cruz) is the head of security at the casino. Irina (Eugenia Yuan) is a waitress. Irina makes almost nothing in tips, and she believes that men don't like her, Modesty tells her not to dress like a nun and show some skin as men only come to the casino to feel happy. Modesty says that when a pretty girl pays a man some attention, they feel alive. The more they feel alive, the more likely they are to spend money. She also tells Irina to smile a lot more. A group of violent criminals assassinate her employer Henri Louche (Valentin Teodosiu) and enter the casino while shooting its staff and demanding entry to the casino's safe. Modesty delays her retaliation and retribution as she protects the lives of her staff. Henri was killed on his way home and Raphael left the casino early to be with his wife. Modesty was in charge when the criminals enter the casino. The criminals, led by Miklos (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) mistakenly kill the only person Boutellis (Bogdan Dumitrescu) who can open the safe. Miklos wanted entry into the safe and Boutellis claimed that he did not know the combination. Modesty informs Miklos that he killed the only person who could open the safe, and the only other person was Louche himself. Miklos says that he killed Louche, which shocks Modesty. Modesty arranges for Raphael to arrive who has the password for the computer that holds the details of the entry to the vault. The vault combination changes every 24 hours and only the computer has the details. Modesty tells Miklos that the vault is booby trapped, and it will kill everyone if Miklos tries to blow it open. She adds that Louche never kept his records at the casino and all his main money was kept in Switzerland, and what was in the safe was merely pocket change by comparison. Miklos is livid to realize that he had been outsmarted by Louche. Modesty calls Raphael, who figures that Henri is dead, and that Modesty & the rest of her crew is in a hostage situation. As the criminals and their captives await Raphael, Modesty takes on the leader of the criminals at the game of roulette. Modesty provokes Miklos by asking him to bet with real money. She says that every man who walks into the casino bets his life, his business, his love and it says a lot about who they are. She insinuates that Miklos is a coward. Miklos argues that all the money in the casino already belongs to him. They agree that if she wins twice in a row, a captive sworn to not tell what happened is released. When she loses, she has to tell the truth about her background to Miklos who has become fascinated by her. She relates her life story little by little in the manner of Scheherazade. Scheherazade is a legendary Persian queen who is the main storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights). She is known for her wit and storytelling skills, which she uses to delay her execution at the hands of a vengeful king. Modesty tells her life story in flashback beginning as an orphaned child in a refugee camp in the Balkans. From early on, Modesty was near soldiers who presumably sexually assaulted her, and she had no fear of guns or violence as she had grown up next to it. At the camp she meets her mentor Professor Lob (Fred Pearson) whom she saves from a gang of bullies who were trying to steal his briefcase from him. Lob and Modesty escape the refugee camp and together hike their way into Turkey. Lob teaches her his knowledge of various languages and martial arts until his death in Algeria where the government forces were battling a group of rebels and Modesty and Lob were caught in the crossfire. Modesty makes her way to Tangier. Henri watches Modesty pick pocketing wallets from tourists and decides to give her a job at the casino. The time setting of the film is kept vague. Although flashback sequences involving warfare invoke World War II or other conflicts in the late 1940s and early 1950s (in keeping with the original comic strip), Modesty as an adult is shown using computers and other current (for 2004) technology. In between Modesty keeps winning and provokes Miklos into honoring his bet and releasing the hostages every-time she wins twice in a row. She gets Olivette (Laura Iordache) (another waitress) free along with another prisoner who has been shot in the leg. Miklos also reveals that Henri sold his dad defective guns, due to which he died. Another waitress Danielle (Ana Maria Florescu) decides to escape while Modesty had kept Miklos, and his crew engaged. But Miklos finds her missing and launches a search. She is shot and captured. As Raphael is delayed, Miklos decides to shoot Irina, but Modesty says she knows the combination and can get Miklos into the vault. Modesty opens the safe, but unknown to Miklos, Raphael was waiting at the other end, having entered the safe via a tunnel. The criminals eventually enter the safe but are confronted with a revenging Modesty. Raphael takes on Miklos's men, while Modesty attacks Miklos and kills him. Modesty takes over the casino and cancels the drug deal that Henri was doing. She tells Raphael that the casino will no longer deal in drugs.

Shale's Mercenary team is retired after a (not so) covert mission in Cuba. He becomes a substitute teacher at his teacher fiancee's Miami high school to get those behind kneecapping her. His team helps him. After a botched mission in Cuba, professional mercenary Shale and his crew Joey Six, Hollan, Rem, and Wellman head home to Miami, Florida, where Shale is reunited with his fiance Jane Hetzko, who is a history teacher at Columbus High School in Miami. Some of Jane's students happen to be members of a street gang known as the "Kings of Destruction" (KOD), led by Juan Lacas, who has been terrorizing Jane. After Jane's kneecap is broken by a big seminole named Bull, she tells Shale that she believes Lacas ordered the attack, so Shale goes undercover as Jane's substitute, and initially, Jane has no idea that Shale is doing this. At the school, Shale meets principal Claude Rolle, librarian Hannah Dillon, and english and drama teacher Darrell Sherman. It turns out that Lacas is one of Jane's students. As Shale investigates the attack on Jane, he discovers that drugs are being circulated into the school. Shale even investigates local drug kingpin Johnny Glades, who may or may not have someone inside the school distributing the drugs for him. Lives are threatened as Shale investigates and sets out to clean up the crime infested school. —Todd Baldridge After a failed mission in Cuba with three casualties, the mercenary Jonathan Shale and his team composed by Joey Six, Rem, Wellman and Hollan return to Miami. Meanwhile, the history teacher at the Columbus High School Jane Hetzko is threatened by the gangster Juan Lacas, who is the leader of the dangerous street gang Kings of Destruction. She reports the menace with her colleague Darrell Sherman to the Principal Claude Rolle, but he does not take any attitude. When the scared Jane returns home, she meets he boyfriend Shale that was visiting her and they spend the night together. On the next morning, Shale has a meeting with the rogue lawyer Matt Wolfson that offers a job to protect a shipment of drugs but Shale declines the offer. When he returns to Jane's apartment, he learns that she is jogging at the beach. He walks to meet her and save Jane from the attack of the strong punk Bull that breaks her kneecap and flees. She asks him to invite a substitute to replace her and Shale adopts the alias James Smith to replace Jane. Soon he learns that Lacas and Rolle are associated to the drug lord Johnny Glades and using the school to store and distribute the drug in Miami. Shale summons his crew and decide to clean the school and eliminate the gangsters. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil After he did some jobs for CIA, ex-marine John Shale is visiting his high school love Jane. She's now a teacher in Columbus High School in Miami. Soon after his arriving Jane has her knee cap broken while jogging. After that, John decides to go undercover as her substitute in high school. Very soon he finds out that gang named Kings of Destruction is terrorizing the school. Shale is going to give everything to stop them, even his own life. —Harun Mehmedinovic <Pkojovic@concentric.net>

The discovery of the murder of an American businessman, Peter Hardin, and his family, outrages U.S. President Edward Bennett (Donald Moffat), Hardin's personal friend. When Hardin is found to have been connected to a Colombian drug cartel, from which he skimmed over $650 million, Bennett tells James Cutter (Harris Yulin), his National Security Advisor, that the cartels represent a "clear and present danger" to the United States, tacitly instructing him to use force against the men responsible for his friend's murder. Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford), appointed acting Deputy Director of Intelligence after Vice Admiral Jim Greer (James Earl Jones) is stricken with cancer, asks Congress for increased funding for ongoing CIA operations in Colombia, believing the funds to be for advisory purposes only. Congress is concerned that the FBI has asked for similar funding increases in the past to carry out covert military ops against state enemies. But Ryan gives a personal assurance that that's not the case. $75M is issued. Keeping Ryan in the dark, Cutter turns to CIA Deputy Director of Operations Bob Ritter (Henry Czerny) to take down the cartel. Ritter insists on Cutter giving him a written authorization before he conducts any covert operations on foreign soil. Ritter assembles a black operations team code-named RECIPROCITY with the help of John Clark (Willem Dafoe). Clark also knows this is black ops and demands payment into his bank account before he moves. The whole thing has been hidden from the U.S. Congress. The team inserts itself into Colombia, with Clark running logistics and Captain Ricardo Ramirez (Benjamin Bratt) of an SF-ODA team commanding the squad on the ground in clandestine search-and-destroy missions against the drug cartel. Their team carries out several hits on planes full of drugs, planning to ship to the U.S. All of them belong to Escobedo. Ryan finds that 3 years ago, Hardin received a large infusion of foreign capital that he invested in shopping malls in the U.S. and posted record profits. It is clear to Ryan that Hardin was laundering money for the Columbian drug cartels. Meanwhile, Bennett sends Ryan to Colombia to investigate Hardin's cartel connection and also to retrieve the $650MM sitting in Hardin's offshore accounts. Ryan would need to establish who Hardin was working for before the U.S. Govt. could seize the money. Greer knows that Ryan has been trapped and tells him to lean on Clark in case he gets into a mess. Jean Fowler (Belita Moreno) is the FBI officer in charge in Bogota and tells Ryan about Escobedo's operations, including Cortez (for whom they don't have a picture). Ryan meets Clark, but Clark doesn't tell Ryan about the hits. Clark takes Ryan seriously when he says he is Greer's man. The cartel leader responsible for Hardin's murder, Ernesto Escobedo (Miguel Sandoval), is enraged when the U.S. attempts to claim the $650 million that was stolen from him and has his intelligence officer, Félix Cortez (Joaquim de Almeida), try to retrieve the funds. Cortez did not agree with Escobedo's strategy to kill Hardin since he was a politically connected figure in the U.S. Cortez visits the U.S. and has a new connection, Moria Wolfson (Ann Magnuson), whom he uses as cover for his spying activities. Cortez is careful to hide himself from Moria's friends whenever he meets her. Moria is on Jack Ryan's FBI team investigating the Hardin murders. Meanwhile, Ramirez's team starts cleaning out Escobedo's cocaine factories hidden in the jungles. Bennett sends FBI Director Emil Jacobs (Tom Tammi) to meet Ryan in Colombia and negotiate with the Columbian Govt. for the money (after Ryan had told Bennett that the link between Escobedo and Hardin was established (Hardin was buying coffee from Escobedo, but was paying $6200 per pound), but Columbia would want to keep a large portion of the funds), and when Cortez discovers this (from Moria, whole unwittingly discloses Jacobs plans to Cortez), he plans an ambush, engineering it so that suspicion will fall on Escobedo. Ryan barely escapes the ambush by cartel hit-men (Cortez kills Moria after travelling to the U.S.), but the remainder of the entourage is killed. Ryan returns to the U.S. Escobedo then summons a meeting with other cartel leaders, which Clark's team hits with an airstrike, but Escobedo arrives late and survives. Several women and children also die in the attack. Ryan finds it strange that Moria was killed the same day as Emil. He checks her answering machine and finds a recorded message from a Latin sounding guy. Sound analysis provides a match with Cortez. Ryan also finds that Ritter ordered the airstrike on the cartel meeting. Cortez discovers the American involvement in the strike and meets with Cutter (he faxes Cutter that he knows American troops are in Columbia fighting an illegal war and threatens to expose it) to broker a deal (the meeting happens in Panama). Cortez will assassinate Escobedo and take over the cartel, promising to reduce drug shipments to the U.S. and allow American law enforcement to make regular arrests to make it appear as if the U.S. is winning the drug war. In exchange, Cutter will shut down all U.S. operations in Colombia and allow Cortez to hunt down Clark's soldiers. Cutter agrees and orders Ritter to get rid of all evidence of their operations and cut off the troops in Colombia from all support. Ryan is played a recording of the conversation between Cutter and Cortez. He hacks Ritter's computer and discovers the conspiracy unfolding in Colombia. The Reciprocity team is ambushed in Colombia by Cortez's mercenaries. Ritter had shut down the satellite link so Clark could not contact the men as they screamed for help. Cutter and Ritter tell Clark that Ryan found out everything and threatened to expose them if they didn't shut it down. They say that Ryan is on his way to Bogota, and if Ryan is out of the way, they are back online. Basically, Ritter and Cutter recruit Clark to kill Ryan for them. Ryan arrives and convinces Clark to allow him to help. Clark calls Ritter and says he killed Ryan and wants the satellites turned back on. But Ritter hangs up on him, proving Ryan's point. They find the team's sniper (Ryan buys a helicopter for $2M and goes searching in the jungles with Clark), Chavez (Raymond Cruz), who tells them that Ramirez and a squad mate have been captured and the remainder have been killed. Ryan visits Escobedo's mansion and shares his intelligence on Cortez. Enraged, Escobedo confronts Cortez but is killed by Cortez's associate. Ryan, Clark, and Chávez rescue the prisoners, kill Cortez, and escape. Ryan confronts the President and tells him he intends to inform the Congressional Oversight Committee about the conspiracy despite the damage it could do to his career. As he walks out of the Oval Office, Cutter asks to speak with him, but Ryan ignores him. Ryan then begins his testimony to Congress.

When a mute, amnesiac woman turns up at an orphanage, private eye Mike Church looks into her identity but ends up finding a connection with a murder that occurred forty years ago.