Category: 1990s

Washington D.C. detective and forensic psychologist Morgan Freeman travels to North Carolina to help track a serial kidnapper-murderer who has abducted his niece. He soon teams up with escaped victim Ashley Judd in an investigation that spans both coasts. Freeman carries off investigator roles quite well. His partnership with Judd mostly works as well. Unfortunately the writing is a stinker. The killer is obvious even with ridiculous attempts at obfuscation and the whole setup is quite ludicrous. 

Demoted to a desk job for a friendly fire accident, Army lieutenant Denzel Washington is called in to investigate the worthiness of chopper commander Meg Ryan for the Medal of Honor. Inconsistencies in the stories of those who witnessed her allegedly heroic behavior makes him pause in signing off on the award despite pressures from his superiors to quickly wrap up the investigation. What follows is an intriguing blend of figuring out who to believe when stories conflict mixed with the gender politics of the United States military. With an inconsistently bad accent, it’s not Ryan’s best role, though she conveys a decent blend of strength and vulnerability. Denzel as always can carry a movie, but I was most impressed with Matt Damon as one of Ryan’s crew members. It’s one of the best acting jobs I’ve seen from him. 

Asked to help the cops with a series of gruesome murders, paralyzed former criminologist Denzel Washington teams up with rookie patrol officer Angelina Jolie to solve the crimes. It’s always equal parts amusing and interesting watching people work within the limits of obsolete technology. The partner pairing, brutal crimes, and central mystery are all intriguingly laid out in the film, but ruined somewhat by an unexpected ending and a forced romantic angle, neither of which make a lot of sense to the story. Even laying immobile in a hospital bed, Denzel acts his pants off.    

Having difficulty securing a job after graduating from Memphis law school, Matt Damon finally finds work as an associate for an ambulance chaser. With the help of paralegal Danny DeVito, he becomes deeply involved in a denial of insurance case. There’s no end of courtroom dramas involving little guys taking on Big Whatever and this isn’t one of the better ones. Damon’s skills aren’t yet capable of leading such a film. Additionally a romance with battered wife Claire Danes feels forced and unnecessary to the plot. It really needed more DeVito and judge Danny Glover to hold any interest.

Documentary director Jennifer Lopez leads her film crew to the Amazon River searching for a local indigenous tribe. Along the way they rescue snake hunter Jon Voight who takes over their boat so that he can hunt down a giant anaconda. The ridiculous over the top camp of the film is only matched by Voight’s acting, especially his attempts at an accent. The rest of the cast, including Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, and Owen Wilson, is quite appealing and work with what they are given. The CGI is very much of its time, but it’s hard to turn away from a film where nature gets in a number of fabulous kills.     

Journalist John Cusack travels to Savannah to research a piece for Town and Country on one of Kevin Spacey’s lavish Christmas parties. On the evening of the party after the guests have all left, local prostitute Jude Law is found dead with Spacey holding the gun. I had forgotten this was based on a nonfiction book and was really expecting a courtroom drama a la John Grisham. Instead, it plays more like a travelogue of Savannah and the eccentric characters who live there; the murder and trial being a secondary focus. Told from the perspective of a square outsider over the course of more than two and a half hours, it lacks focus and doesn’t seem to have much to do after introducing the quirky residents.