By James Whittington, 28th February 2024
LEGEND swings into action with ten Channel premieres, including U-TURN, Oliver Stone's superior neo-noir thriller, starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez, JAGGED EDGE, Richard Marquand's tense hit drama, starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges and DRIVE HARD, a fast-paced Aussie buddy movie starring John Cusack and Thomas Jane. Thomas Jane also turns up in riveting crime thriller BULLETPROOF and there's hard-boiled detective action in EYE FOR AN EYE, starring John Travolta and Morgan Freeman.
The other channel premieres this month are NOWHERE TO RUN, an action adventure starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Rosanna Arquette, survivalist thriller WHILE SHE WAS OUT, starring Kim Basinger and exec produced by Guillermo Del Toro, underwater WW2 mystery RENEGADES and action-packed epic, EYE OF THE TIGER, starring Gary Busey.
This month's THE VINTAGE VAULT, which journeys into the history of genre cinema every Sunday night, is spearheaded by the Channel premiere of DOCTOR FAUSTUS, a mesmerising adaptation of the Christopher Marlowe play. As well as starring in the title role, Richard Burton also co-directed, alongside Nevill Coghill, his Oxford University mentor.
Here's all the info you need:
We start om the 2nd with the Channel Premiere of EYE FOR AN EYE. Carson Phillips (John Travolta) is a hard-drinking L.A. private eye, who takes a case in his old hometown of Galveston, Texas. While searching for a missing woman, Philips must confront a crime boss (Morgan Freeman) and his own dark, disturbing past. WHILE SHE WAS OUT on the 8th has Guillermo del Toro as Executive Producer. In this riveting revenge thriller Kim Basinger stars as Della, a suburban housewife, who flees her abusive husband on Christmas Eve, only to be chased down by a gang of thugs. Stranded in a desolate forest after a dangerous car chase, she is pushed to breaking point, her attackers in hot pursuit. The following night we meet RENEGADES. A team of Navy SEALS on assignment in war-torn Europe, discover a treasure of valuable gold at the bottom of a lake. In an effort to help the locals, they go rogue and engineer a heist to retrieve the gold and return it to its rightful owners. But in a deadly turn of events, they are detected by the enemy and left with only ten hours to carry out their mission.
We meet the EYE OF THE TIGER on the 15th where a former Vietnam veteran and ex-con Buck Matthews (Gary Busey), finds that his hometown has been overrun by a sadistic motorcycle gang, so he enlists the help of a fellow vet to win the town back. Yaphet Kotto and William Smith also star. A classic thriller on the 16th, JAGGED EDGE is where a newspaper heiress has been savagely murdered in the beach house she shares with her husband, Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges). When a witness connects him to the murder weapon, he is arrested. Jack chooses sharp former prosecutor Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close) to represent him, but when she becomes emotionally attracted to her client not only does that compromise her professional ethics but may put her in mortal danger. Classic chills on the 17th as we introduce you to DOCTOR FAUSTUS. In an attempt to master all human knowledge, Wittenberg University's greatest scholar, Doctor Faustus (Richard Burton), strikes an unholy bargain with the Devil: in exchange for his soul, Faustus will gain youth, wisdom and The Woman (Elizabeth Taylor), a living embodiment of Helen of Troy. Blinded by visions of terror and joy, Faustus loses his ability to repent and willingly follows The Woman as she leads him down through the gates of Hell.
In BULLETPROOF on the 21st we follow two LAPD officers as they hunt two cop killers on the loose in a city about to boil over. 'Training Day' meets 'End of Watch', 'Bulletproof' is a brutal look at the extreme danger and unthinkable sacrifices police officers face when they commit to serve and protect the public starring Thomas Jane and Luke Kleintank. High-octane action on the 23rd in DRIVE HARD. A former race car driver (Thomas Jane) is abducted by a mysterious thief (John Cusack) and forced to be the wheelman for a crime that puts them both in the sights of the cops and the mob who are determined to catch them, dead or alive. Hard hitting drama on the 29th as we make a U-TURN. On his way to Las Vegas to pay back a gambling debt, hustler Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn) ends up in the town of Superior, Arizona, when his car breaks down. There he meets Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez) and her powerful husband Jake (Nick Nolte). Jake offers Bobby money to kill Grace. Then Grace asks Bobby to get rid of Jake. The stakes are high as Bobby is locked into a deadly game of lust, madness and money. Our final Channel Premiere is on the 30th, NOWHERE TO RUN. After escaping from prison, Sam Gillen (Jean-Claude Van Damme) needs a place to lie low. Clydie (Rosanna Arquette), a young widow with two small children, needs someone to help fight the corrupt developers trying to drive her off her land. Sam Becomes involved with Clydie and her kids, who offer him a sense of purpose and he vows to protect them from the ruthless hired gun sent to persuade Clydie to sell her land.
Related show tags: BULLETPROOF, DOCTOR FAUSTUS, DRIVE HARD, EYE FOR AN EYE, EYE OF THE TIGER, JAGGED EDGE, NOWHERE TO RUN, RENEGADES, THE VINTAGE VAULT, U-TURN, WHILE SHE WAS OUT MORE FEATURES Crime and sci-fi adventures headline May 2024 premieres on LEGEND
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