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Tag: Corruption

Burt Reynolds as Detective Sharky in a surveillance scene from the 1981 Atlanta police thriller, monitoring a target through1980s

Sharky’s Machine (1981) Review

September 11, 2026

Sharky's Machine (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Burt Reynolds directed himself in an Atlanta police thriller with a jazz score, a surveillance structure and a genuinely nasty streak, and it is the best film he…

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Kurt Russell as Detective Eldon Perry in a scene from the 2002 film Dark Blue, wearing LAPD uniform in an interior setting.2000s

Dark Blue (2002) Review

September 11, 2026

Dark Blue (2002) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurt Russell plays a third-generation LAPD officer who plants evidence as a matter of routine, set in the week before the Rodney King verdict. James Ellroy wrote the…

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Cate Blanchett in costume as Queen Elizabeth I, with whitened face and red hair, in a scene from the 1998 film.1990s

Elizabeth (1998) Review

September 11, 2026

Elizabeth (1998) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Shekhar Kapur made a Tudor film that behaves like a political thriller, with Cate Blanchett moving from frightened prisoner to constructed icon across two hours. She lost Best Actress…

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Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich in a professional office setting, wearing distinctive clothing that signals her2000s

Erin Brockovich (2000) Review

September 11, 2026

Erin Brockovich (2000) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Soderbergh made a genuinely good film about a paralegal assembling six hundred plaintiffs against a utility company, and Julia Roberts won Best Actress over Ellen Burstyn in Requiem…

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Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in a scene from the 2018 film Vice, wearing a dark suit.2010s

Vice (2018) Review

September 11, 2026

Vice (2018) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Christian Bale gained around forty-five pounds and disappeared into Dick Cheney, in a film whose formal tricks keep interrupting a genuinely serious subject. Bale lost Best Actor to Rami…

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Russell Crowe in a business suit sits across from Al Pacino during an intense conversation in a corporate office setting.1990s

The Insider (1999) Review

September 11, 2026

The Insider (1999) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Michael Mann made a two-and-a-half-hour thriller about a man giving a television interview, in which the entire plot is legal procedure and corporate liability, and it is one…

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Steven Soderbergh directing Traffic on set, likely in Mexico or San Diego given the film's three-strand structure across2000s

Traffic (2000) Review

September 11, 2026

Traffic (2000) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Soderbergh shot three parallel drug war narratives himself, gave each one a different film stock, and won Best Director while the film lost Best Picture to Gladiator. Benicio del…

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