Ricky Jay

MI6 sends James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), agent 007, into the field to reconnoiter a terrorist arms bazaar on the Russian border. Despite M's insistence on letting 007 finish his reconnaissance, Royal Navy Admiral Roebuck (Geoffrey Palmer) orders the frigate HMS Chester to fire a Harpoon missile at the bazaar. Bond then discovers two nuclear torpedoes mounted on an L-39 Albatros, and is forced to pilot the L-39 away seconds before the bazaar is destroyed by the missile because the missile is out of range to be aborted. Media baron Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) starts his plans to use an encoder obtained at the bazaar by his henchman, Cyber-terrorist Henry Gupta (Ricky Jay), to provoke war between China and the UK. Meaconing the GPS signal using the encoder, Gupta sends the frigate HMS Devonshire off-course into Chinese-occupied waters in the South China Sea, where Carver's stealth ship, commanded by Mr. Stamper (Götz Otto), ambushes it - sinking it in the process - and steals one of its missiles, while shooting down a Chinese J-11 fighter jet investigating the scene and killing off the Devonshire's survivors with weaponry loaded with Chinese ammunition. The British Minister of Defence (Julian Fellowes) orders Roebuck to deploy the fleet to investigate the sinking of the frigate, and demands retaliation, leaving M only 48 hours to investigate its sinking and avert a war. Q (Desmond Llewelyn), MI6's gadget-master. Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond), M's personal secretary. M (Judi Dench) sends Bond to investigate Carver because MI6 became suspicious of him after he releases news articles about the crisis hours before the Vietnamese government had learned of it. Also British station in Singapore picked a signal on the GPS frequencies coming from one of Carver's satellites. Bond travels to Hamburg to seduce Carver's wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher), who is also an ex-girlfriend of Bond's from many years before, to get information that would help him enter Carver's newspaper headquarters. He defeats three of Stamper's men (After Carver orders his men to take Bond away and make him "uncomfortable") and cuts Carver off the air during the inaugural broadcast of his satellite network. Meanwhile, at Bond's hotel room, he and Paris reconcile (Carver had Paris followed. Later Henry tells Carver that Bond is a Gov't agent). The next day, she provides him with the information he needs to infiltrate Carver's newspaper factory to recover the GPS encoder. Carver then discovers the truth about Paris and Bond (Henry shows him a clip of both talking about old times at Carver's party) and orders both of them killed. Bond goes to the newspaper factory and steals the encoder. While he is gone, Carver's assassin Dr. Kaufman (Vincent Schiavelli) kills Paris. After Bond returns to find Paris' body, Kaufman attempts to shoot him. Bond is able to kill Kaufman and escape (in his remote-controlled BMW), protecting the encoder. At a U.S. Air Force base in Okinawa (where he meets Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), CIA liaison), Bond learns that the encoder had been tampered with (which sent the Devonshire off course into Chinese waters, without knowing it), and goes to the South China Sea to investigate the wreck (which was actually in Vietnamese waters). He and Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese Ministry of State Security agent on the same case, explore the sunken ship and discover one of its cruise missiles missing, but after reaching the surface they are captured by Stamper and taken to the CMGN tower in Saigon. They soon escape (They were handcuffed together. They slide down a Carver poster that ran across the height of the building and then steal a motorcycle and ride it in tandem to get away from Carver's goons) and decide to collaborate on the investigation. The two contact the Royal Navy and the People's Liberation Army Air Force to explain Carver's scheme; Carver plans to destroy the Chinese government with the stolen missile, allowing a Chinese general (on Carver's payroll) to step in and stop the war between Britain and China, both of which have waged a naval war. Once the conflict is over, Carver will be given exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next century. Finding Carver's stealth ship (They figure the stealth ship was built by the Chinese general, working for Carver and so must be hidden in a port controlled by him), they board it to prevent him from firing the missile at Beijing (as it sails to position itself between the navies of China and Britain). During the attempt, Wai Lin is captured (while planting bombs on Carver's ship), forcing Bond to devise a second plan. Bond captures Gupta to use as his own hostage, but Carver kills Gupta claiming he has "outlived his contract." Bond detonates an explosive that damages the ship, rendering it visible to the Chinese and British navies' radars, and vulnerable to a subsequent Royal Navy attack. While Wai Lin disables the engines, she is recaptured by Stamper. Bond kills Carver with his own sea drill and attempts to destroy the warhead with detonators, but Stamper attacks him, and sends a chained Wai Lin into the water. Bond traps Stamper in the missile firing mechanism and saves Wai Lin as the missile explodes, destroying the ship and killing Stamper. Bond and Wai Lin share a romantic moment in the middle of the wreckage as HMS Bedford searches for them.

Shoe-shiner Gino is hired to take the rap for a mafia murder. Two-bit gangster Jerry watches over Gino and gives him a weekend to remember. Gino, an Italian-American shoe-shiner with a remarkable similarity to a certain mafia don, is paid to take the rap for a murder. Jerry, a two-bit gangster on probation, is given a chance for redemption by guarding Gino for the weekend. But instead of sitting around a dingy hotel room, Jerry decides to give Gino a weekend to remember, taking him to Lake Tahoe. Jerry's bragging to his friends of his important charge, as well as Gino's dignified, quiet demeanor, soon result in much complication for them both. —Mike Myers <mmyers@ucsd.edu>

Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) is a psychiatrist living in Seattle, Washington who has achieved success with her recently published book about obsessive-compulsive disorder, yet feels unfulfilled. During a session one day, her patient Billy Hahn (Steve Goldstein) tells her his life is in danger because he owes money to a criminal figure named Mike Mancuso (Joe Mantegna), and threatens suicide, brandishing a gun. Margaret persuades him to surrender the weapon to her and promises that she will help him. That night, Margaret visits a pool hall called the House of Games, where she finds and confronts Mike, who says that he is willing to forgive Billy's debt if Margaret accompanies him to a back-room poker game and identifies the tell of George (Ricky Jay), another player. She agrees, and spots George playing with his ring when he bluffs. She discloses this to Mike, who calls the bluff. However, George wins the hand and demands that Mike pay the $6,000 bet, which he is unable to do. George pulls a gun, but Margaret intervenes and offers to pay the debt with a personal check from her own bank account. She then notices that the gun is a water pistol, and realizes the entire game is a set-up to trick her out of her money. She declines to pay, but spends the rest of the night socializing with the con men. As the experience has excited her, she returns the next night and asks Mike to teach her about con games so she can write a book about the experience. Mike appears skeptical, but agrees. Mike begins to enchant Margaret by showing her simple tricks. Eventually, the two steal a hotel room and have sex for the first time. Afterward, Mike tells Margaret that all con artists take a small token from every "mark" to signify their dominance. While Mike is in the bathroom, she takes a small pocket knife from the table, believing it to belong to the man whose room they are in. Mike tells her he is late for another, large-scale con he and his associates plan to pull at the same hotel. Margaret is eager to tag along, and with seeming reluctance, Mike allows her to accompany him, posing as his wife. The con involves Mike, his partner Joey (Mike Nussbaum), and the "mark", a nameless businessman (J.T. Walsh), discovering a briefcase full of money and taking it to a hotel room. There, they discuss whether to turn it in or split it among themselves. When the "mark" withdraws to the bathroom, Margaret discovers that he is an undercover policeman, and the trick is a sting operation. She warns Mike, and they attempt to escape, but the policeman blocks their way and tries to arrest them. After a struggle, Margaret accidentally causes the policeman/businessman to fatally shoot himself. She, Mike and Joey escape to the garage, where they force Margaret to steal a car and drive past two uniformed police officers with the con men concealed in the back seat. They drive the car to a riverbank and are preparing to abandon it when they discover that the briefcase, containing $80,000 borrowed from the mafia for the con, is gone. Margaret offers to give Mike $80,000 of her own money so he can pay back the mob. Mike tells Margaret that they must split up so as not to draw any attention from the police, and claims to be going into hiding. Riddled with guilt, Margaret returns to her office and refuses to see any patients. Billy arrives in high spirits, and after a brief conversation, she spots him driving away in the same red convertible she "stole" at the hotel. She tracks him to a bar, where she sees Mike and a group including all his associates, the man posing as the occupant of the hotel room, and the undercover policeman... alive and well..., discussing the night's events - a scheme to con Margaret out of $80,000. She also learns that the pocket knife she stole from the hotel room belongs to Mike. Margaret intercepts Mike at the airport after overhearing him say he is catching a flight that night and tells him she is so worried about the police that she has withdrawn her entire life's savings. She pleads with him to start a new life with her. Mike is lured by the money, but realizes he's being tricked when she lets slip that she knew the pocket knife belonged to him, revealing that she overheard the con men's conversation. He tells her her money has already been split between them and is gone, but she pulls out the gun taken from Billy and demands that he beg for his life. Calling her bluff, Mike refuses, but Margaret shoots him in the leg. When Mike then curses her, she shoots him five more times, killing him. She calmly conceals the gun and leaves. Some time later, Margaret has returned from a vacation and is meeting her friend and colleague Dr. Littauer (Lilia Skala), having moved on from the ordeal. They talk over lunch, and Margaret seems to show no remorse for killing Mike, saying, "When you've done something unforgivable, you must forgive yourself, and that's what I've done, and it's done." When her friend is away from the table, Margaret distracts another female diner customer so she can steal a gold cigarette lighter from the woman's purse, relishing the thrill.