February 19, 2008 DVD Releases

Michael Clayton

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Pamela Gray

Synopsis: Michael Clayton is an in-house “fixer” at one of the largest corporate law firms in New York. A former criminal prosecutor, Clayton takes care of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s dirtiest work at the behest of the firm’s co-founder Marty Bach. Though burned out and hardly content with his job as a fixer, his divorce, a failed business venture and mounting debt have left Clayton inextricably tied to the firm. At U/North, meanwhile, the career of litigator Karen Crowder rests on the multi-million dollar settlement of a class action suit that Clayton’s firm is leading to a seemingly successful conclusion. But when Kenner Bach’s brilliant and guilt-ridden attorney Arthur Edens sabotages the U/North case, Clayton faces the biggest challenge of his career and his life.

American Gangster

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Josh Brolin, Common, Ted Levine

Synopsis: Based on the life of drug-kingpin-turned-informant, Frank Lucas, who grew up in segregated North Carolina where he watched as his cousin was shot by the Klan for looking at a white girl. He eventually made his way to Harlem where he became a heroin kingpin by traveling to Asia’s Golden Triangle to make connections, shipping heroin back to the US in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam. He soon made upwards of one million dollars a day in drug sales. Lucas was shadowed by lawman, Richie Roberts, who finally helped bring the kingpin to justice. The two then worked together to expose the crooked cops and foreign nationals who made importing heroin so easy.

Margot at the Wedding

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, John Turturro, Flora Cross

Synopsis: Margot Zeller, a savagely bright, razor-tongued short-story writer who creates chaos wherever she goes, sets off on a surprise journey to the wedding of her estranged and free-spirited, unassuming sister Pauline. Margot, with her all-too-rapidly maturing son Claude in tow, arrives with the gale force of a hurricane. From the minute she meets Pauline’s fiance–the unemployed artist Malcolm–Margot starts to plant seeds of doubt about the union. As the wedding approaches, one complication crashes into the next: vengeful neighbors, a beloved tree in the backyard and Margot’s own marital turmoil. The two sisters find themselves at the precipice of an unexpected transformation ultimately revealing that even when your family is about to implode the one thing you can cling to for solace and comfort is your imploding family.

Rendition

Genre: Thriller, Politics/Religion

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Reese Witherspoon, Omar Metwally, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, Meryl Streep

Synopsis: A thriller that centers on Isabella El-Ibrahimi, the American wife of Egyptian-born chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi, who disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington. After a terrorist bombing kills an American envoy in a foreign country. An investigation leads to an Egyptian who has been living in the United States for years and who is married to an American. He is apprehended when he’s on his way home. The U.S. sends him to the country where the incident occurs for interrogation which includes torture. An American CIA operative observes the interrogation and is at odds whether to keep it going or to stop it. In the meantime, the man’s wife raises hell to find him despite being pregnant but the person behind this refuses to help or give her any information.

In The Valley Of Elah

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Susan Sarandon, Jonathan Tucker

Synopsis: On his first weekend back after serving in Iraq, Mike Deerfield goes missing and is reported AWOL. When Hank Deerfield, a former military MP and his wife Joan get the phone call with the disturbing news, Hank sets out to search for their son. Emily Sanders, a police detective in the jurisdiction where Mike was last seen, reluctantly helps him in his search. As the evidence grows, her missing person’s case begins to look more and more like foul play, and soon Sanders finds herself in a fight with the military brass as she and Hank struggle to keep control of the investigation. But when the truth about Mike’s time in Iraq finally begins to emerge, Hank’s entire world is challenged and he’s forced to reevaluate long-held beliefs to solve the mystery behind his son’s disappearance.

Lust, Caution

Genre: Thriller, Adaptation

Rating: NC-17

Actors/Actresses: Tang Wei, Tony Leung, Wang Lee Hom, Joan Chen, Chih-ying Chu

Synopsis: Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a cafe, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi. With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min. Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences–and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee. Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee’s trust by befriending his wife and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted–until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong–having emigrated from Hong Kong–goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit…

Chaos

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Jason Statham, Ryan Phillippe, Wesley Snipes, Justine Waddell

Synopsis: Jason Statham (Crank), Ryan Phillippe (Breach) and Wesley Snipes (Blade) star in Chaos, an action-packed, heist thriller about two detectives who team-up in pursuit of a bank robber who knows too much about the inner workings of the police department. In Seattle, Detective Quentin Conners (Statham) is unfairly suspended and his partner quits the force after a tragic shooting involving a hostage. When a bank heist turns into another hostage situation, Conners is called back to duty and assigned a new partner, rookie Shane Dekker (Phillippe). When the robbers, led by Lorenz (Snipes), escape the scene with no cash in hand, the detectives soon learn that a virus was planted in the bank’s computer system. The virus removes one billion dollars from various private accounts, using the principle of the Chaos Theory. Now, the race is on to find Lorenz and the rest of his crew before it’s too late.

Catacombs

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Shannyn Sossamon, Pink

Synopsis: Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight’s Tale) and Grammy-winning recording artist Alecia Moore (Pink), star in the nightmarish thriller Catacombs available on the unrated DVD February 19. Victoria (Sossamon) is making her first trip to Paris to visit her sister. On her first night in town, she is swept into the Parisian underground rave scene, literally under ground into the city’s catacombs, the 200-mile labyrinth of limestone tunnels under the city that’s lined with the remains of 7 million people. It is here, among the bodies of the dead which have rested undisturbed for centuries, that the easily frightened Victoria finds herself lost in the darkness, pursued by someone or something more terrifying than she could have ever imagined…

Redacted

Genre: Drama, War

Rating: R

Actors/Actresses: Patrick Carroll, Paul O’Brien, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Kel O’Neill, Rob Devaney

Synopsis: A montage of stories about U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq conflict, focusing on the modern forms of media covering the war.