After a toxic chemical spill, Beverly Hills is evacuated. While its citizens wait in a hotel, their mansions and valuables are guarded by the police and agents of the EPA. Or so they think. It turns out that the chemical spill was faked and that both the police and the government agents are in on it. While the town’s deserted, they’re going to rob everyone blind. The scheme’s mastermind is Bat Masterson (Robert Davi), the owner of L.A. Rams. What Masterson doesn’t realize is that one citizen of Beverly Hills stayed behind, his own quarterback, Boomer Hayes (Ken Wahl). Teaming up with Ed Kelvin (Matt Frewer), the last honest cop in town, Boomer sets out to protect Beverly Hills.
It’s just a dumb as it sounds. In fact, of the many Die Hard ripoffs that came out in the late 80s and the early 90s, The Taking of Beverly Hills is probably the dumbest, which also makes it one of the most entertaining. Boomer, who has an impressive mullet, can only speak in football analogies, constantly assuring Ed that it’s only the first down and that they can turn things around after halftime. When Boomer gets serious, he says, “It’s time to play offense.” One of the stranger things about The Taking of Beverly Hills is that, unlike working class hero John McClane, Boomer is not an outsider. He’s in Beverly Hills because he’s rich. The Taking of Beverly Hills is basically about one rich guy trying to keep another rich guy from robbing a bunch of other rich people. It’s Die Hard if Hart Bochner had been the hero instead of Bruce Willis.
Keep an eye out for Lee Ving, lead singer of Fear, playing one of the corrupt cops and an uncredited Pamela Anderson cast as a cheerleader. And keep your ears open for songs like Epic by Faith No More because their presence on the soundtrack (and the associated rights issue) is the reason was this stupidly entertaining movie will probably never get a DVD/Blu-ray release in the United States.
It has been released in Germany, where it was retitled Boomer after the lead character.
Truman Gates (Patrick Swayze) may have been raised in Appalachia but, now that he lives in Chicago, he’s left the old ways behind. He has a job working as a cop and his wife (Helen Hunt) is pregnant with their first child. When Truman’s younger brother, Gerald (Bill Paxton), shows up in town and asks for Truman’s help, Truman gets him a job as a truck driver. But, on his first night on the job, Gerald’s truck is hijacked by a Sicilian mobster named Joey Rosellini (Adam Baldwin) and Gerald is killed. Truman’s older brother, Briar (Liam Neeson), soon comes to Chicago and declares a blood feud on the mob.
Rebel opens the same way as First Blood, with Sylvester Stallone hitchhiking on a country road. Other than that, the two films have nothing in common. For one thing, in Rebel, Sly is wearing a big floppy hat and stops to feed some horses with a big, goofy grin on his face. He also doesn’t get hassled by the man. Instead, he gets picked up by a bunch of hippies in VW microbus.
This was Stallone’s second film, after A Party At Kitty and Stud’s. He was twenty-four years old. The film was originally released under the title No Place To Hide and it vanished until 
In rural Colorado, the three wives and all the children of Orville Beecham (Charlie Dierkop) have been murdered. Veteran journalist Garret Smith (Charles Bronson) discovers that Orville is the son of an excommunicated Mormon fundamentalist named Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey). Willis, who lives on a heavily armed compound, practices polygamy and wants nothing to do with the outside world. However, Willis’s brother, Zenas (John Ireland), long ago split with Willis and set up a compound of his own. At first, Garret suspects that Orville’s family was killed by Zenas. As Zenas and Willis go to war, Garret discovers that there’s actually a bigger conspiracy at work, one dealing with corporate greed and water rights. (Forget it, Bronson, it’s Chinatown.)
In the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, no one is more feared than Boyd Bendix (Daniel J. Travanti), an acerbic, right-wing gossip columnist. Anyone who crosses Bendix the wrong way runs the risk of being accused of everything from sexual deviancy to communism. Bendix’s latest victim is prominent journalist named Dennis Corcoran (Gordon Pinset). Unlike everyone else who has been bullied by Bendix, Corcoran refuses to quietly submit. Working with a gruff but brilliant attorney, Robert Sloane (Ed Asner), Corcoran takes Bendix to court.
Like any newly inaugurated President, Manfred Link (Bob Newhart) faces many new challenges. The biggest challenge, though, is keeping control of his family and his White House staff. His wife (Madeline Kahn) is an alcoholic. His 28 year-old daughter (Gilda Radner) is so desperate to finally lose her virginity that she is constantly trying to sneak out of the White House. General Dumpson (Rip Torn) wants to start a war. Press Secretary Bunthorne (Richard Benjamin), Ambassador Spender (Harvey Korman), and Presidential Assistant Feebleman (Fred Willard) struggle and often fail to convince everyone that all is well.
Fay Forrest (Joanne Whalley) and her boyfriend, Vince Miller (Michael Madsen), make their living stealing from the mob. After their latest job results in the death of a made man, Fay decides that she needs to escape from the abusive Vince. She runs away to Las Vegas, where she looks up a small-time, financially strapped P.I., Jack Andrews (Val Kilmer). She hires Jack to help her fake her death, offering to pay him $5,000 upfront and $5,000 after she’s dead. Jack is reluctant to get involved but he also has a loan shark threatening to break every bone in his body. Jack helps Fay fake her death but then Fay leaves town without paying him the second $5,000. Even worse, both Vince and the mob quickly figure out that Fay is not actually dead and join Jack in trying to track her down.
Through the Shattered Lens 