Stories by @hollywood2020

Ronin

At a bistro in Montmartre, Irish operative Deirdre meets with two Americans, Sam and Larry, and a Frenchman, Vincent. She takes them to a warehouse where the Englishman Spence and the German Gregor are waiting. Conversations between the men show that they are all ex-government agents or ex-military-turned-mercenary. Deirdre briefs them on their mission: to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large, metallic briefcase. Their first task before the main mission is to acquire weapons; this turns into a setup. Although the team survives and get the weapons, Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam. He is dismissed by Deirdre and the others continue the mission. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her handler, Seamus O'Rourke, who tells her that the Russian mafia is bidding for the case and that the team must intervene before they get it. During a stakeout, Sam and Deirdre develop an attraction to one other.

The Towering Inferno

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for developer James Duncan (William Holden). The Tower, 1,688 feet (515 m) tall and 138 stories, is the world's tallest building. During testing an electrical short starts an undetected fire on the 81st floor. During tests in the utility rooms a detected short occurs with Roberts suspecting that Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain), the electrical subcontractor and Duncan's son-in-law, cut corners. Roberts confronts Simmons, who feigns innocence.

Enemy of the State

The NSA (National Security Agency) is a powerful intelligence agency in the United States that monitors enemies of the state. They want through a proposal that will allow them to monitor without restrictions, which will make them even more powerful and at the same time significantly weaken privacy in the United States. Several senators are opposed to this, but the NSA people, led by Thomas Reynolds (Jon Voight), are pushing. When the leader of the Senate committee refuses to give up, he is killed by NSA agents led by Reynolds. The murder is accidentally filmed, but the photographer is tracked down, hunted down and killed. But before the agents get hold of the film, he manages to give it to Robert Dean (Will Smith), without noticing it.

The Insider

A prologue establishes the journalistic bona fides of 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino) and host Mike Wallace (Plummer) as they prepare to interview Sheikh Fadlallah for 60 Minutes. Later, Bergman approaches Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe)—a former executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company—for help translating technical documents. Wigand agrees, but intrigues Bergman when he refuses to discuss anything else, citing a confidentiality agreement. B&W later coerce Wigand into a more restrictive agreement, leading Wigand to accuse Bergman of betraying him. Bergman subsequently visits Wigand to defend himself and investigate the potential story. Wigand, though apparently possessing very damaging information, is hesitant to jeopardize his severance package with B&W by revealing anything.

The Devil's Advocate

Kevin Lomax, a defense attorney from Gainesville, Florida, has never lost a case. As he defends a schoolteacher, Lloyd Gettys, against a charge of child molestation, Kevin belatedly realizes his client is guilty and local reporter Larry warns him a guilty verdict is inevitable. However, through a harsh cross-examination, Kevin destroys the victim's credibility, securing a "not guilty" verdict.

The Jackal

A joint operation between the FBI and the MVD leads to the death of the younger brother of an Azerbaijani mobster. In retaliation, the mobster contacts and hires a professionally trained, internationally-operating hitman, whose actual name is never revealed, operating in the codename of the "Jackal" to kill an unidentified important American target. The Jackal demands $70 million for the assignment, to which the mobster agrees. Meanwhile, the MVD capture one of the mafia's henchmen. During the interrogation, the henchman reveals the name "Jackal". This, coupled with documents recovered from his briefcase, leads the FBI and MVD to assume the target for the retaliatory hit is FBI Director Donald Brown.

Mercury Rising

During a bank robbery hostage situation, an undercover FBI agent, Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis), attempts unsuccessfully to negotiate for more time to defuse the situation. The FBI storms the bank killing the robbers, but Jeffries's cover is blown, so he is given a boring desk job.

Chain Recation

Eddie Kasalivich is a machinist working with a team from the University of Chicago to convert hydrogen from water into clean energy. Eddie inadvertently discovers the secret: a sound frequency that enables a perfect stabilization of their process. The project team celebrates with a party at the lab, after which project physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair’s car will not start. Eddie gets her home by bus. Back in the lab, Drs. Alistair Barkley and Lu Chen are on their computers preparing to upload their discovery to the Internet so they can share the breakthrough with the world. A band of men enter the lab.

Lost Highway

One day, Fred Madison, a Los Angeles saxophonist, receives a message on the intercom of his house: "Dick Laurent is dead." The next morning, his wife Renee finds a VHS tape on their porch containing a video of their house. After having sex, Fred sees Renee's face as that of a pale old man, then tells her he had a dream about someone resembling her being attacked. As the days pass, more tapes arrive, showing shots of them asleep in their bed. Fred and Renee call the police but the detectives offer no assistance. Fred and Renee attend a party being thrown by her friend Andy. The Mystery Man Fred dreamed about approaches Fred, claiming to have met him before. The man then says he is at Fred's house at that very moment and answers the house phone when Fred calls him. Fred learns from Andy that the man is a friend of Dick Laurent's. Terrified, Fred leaves the party with Renee. The next morning, another tape arrives and Fred watches it alone. To his horror, it shows him hovering over Renee's dismembered body. He is sentenced to death for her murder.

Volcano

In downtown Los Angeles, an earthquake strikes. Michael Roark, the director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, insists on coming to work to help out with the crisis, although he has been on vacation with his daughter Kelly. His associate, Emmit Reese, notes that the quake caused no major damage, but seven utility workers are later burned to death in a storm drain at MacArthur Park. One escapes and survives, but is severely burned on one side of his face. As a precaution, Roark tries to halt the subway lines that run parallel, but Los Angeles MTA Chairman Stan Olber opposes, feeling that there is no threat to the trains. Against regulations, Roark and his coworker Gator Harris venture down the storm sewer in the park to investigate. They barely escape when hot gases suddenly spew out of a crack in the concrete lining and flood the tunnel. C.I.G.S. Geologist Dr. Amy Barnes believes that a volcano may be forming beneath the city with magma flowing underground. Unfortunately, she has insufficient evidence to make Roark take action.

Gattaca

In the future, eugenics is common. A genetic registry database uses biometrics to classify those so created as "valids" while those conceived by traditional means and more susceptible to genetic disorders are known as "in-valids". Genetic discrimination is illegal, but in practice genotype profiling is used to identify valids to qualify for professional employment while in-valids are relegated to menial jobs.

12 Monkeys

In 2035, James Cole is a prisoner living in a subterranean compound beneath the ruins of Philadelphia. Cole is selected to be trained and sent back in time to find the original virus, in order to help scientists develop a cure. Meanwhile, Cole is troubled by recurring dreams involving a foot chase and shooting at an airport.

Godzilla

An iguana nest is exposed to the fallout of a military nuclear test in French Polynesia. In the South Pacific Ocean, a Japanese fishing vessel is suddenly attacked by an enormous creature, with only one seaman surviving. Traumatized, he is questioned by a mysterious Frenchman in a hospital regarding what he saw, to which he only replies "Gojira."

Independence Day

On July 2, 1996, an enormous mothership UFO that has one fourth the mass of the Moon, enters orbit around Earth, deploying assault fortress saucers, each with a fifteen-mile radius, that take positions over 36 of Earth's major cities. David Levinson, an MIT-trained satellite technician, decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions, realizing it is the aliens' countdown timer for a coordinated attack. With help from his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David, and his father Julius gain access to the Oval Office and warn President Thomas J. Whitmore of the attack. Whitmore immediately orders large-scale evacuations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., but it is too late; the timer reaches zero, and the saucers fire destructive beams into the ground, causing massive walls of fire that kill millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others narrowly escape aboard Air Force One as Washington is destroyed, along with the other locations over which the saucers are positioned.