White Sands (film)
Encyclopedia
White Sands is a 1992 motion picture directed by Roger Donaldson
and written by Daniel Pyne for Warner Bros.
The movie is about a U.S. southwestern small-town sheriff
who finds a body in the desert with a suitcase and $500,000. He impersonates the man and stumbles into an FBI investigation. It stars Willem Dafoe
, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
and Mickey Rourke
.
Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal is called to look at a body in the White Sands desert
alongside a suitcase with $500,000 discovered by two tourists. A mortician is content to have the death remain a mystery, but Dolezal sees a chance to escape the boredom of being a family man and a law officer in a small town where not much seems to happen.
They track the victim, Spenser, and his last known residence to a local motel. During the autopsy they find a phone number written on paper inside the stomach. Dolezal calls the number, posing as Spenser, to set up a meeting. At the motel, two females attack him at gunpoint, grab the money and instruct him to meet Gorman Lennox at a restaurant.
Dolezal is intercepted by an FBI agent named Greg Meeker, who informs him that Bob Spenser was an FBI agent working undercover. Now that Dolezal has handed the money over to the bad guys, Meeker concludes he may as well continue to pose as Spenser in an effort to regain the money or help the FBI make a bust.
He meets Lennox and wealthy associate Lane Bodine and learns that the money is being used to buy illegal arms in an effort to fund left-wing freedom fighters that are apparently being slaughtered by right-wing militia somewhere in South America. However, the arms dealers want $250,000 more for the weapons. Meeker, not willing to cough up more money, pushes the responsibility of raising the additional quarter-million dollars on Dolezal. Dolezal ends up romancing his way into Lane's life so that she will attract rich humanitarian donors to donate the needed money.
The plot thickens as two FBI men from internal affairs look for Dolezal, thinking he killed Spenser and took the money. Lane knows that Dolezal is not really Spenser, but she agrees to keep the secret and raise the money because she finds Dolezal an attractive, honest alternative to the violent Lennox.
Dolezal suspects that something else is going on and when he attends a rodeo with Lane and meets Noreen, who had an affair with the real Spenser. It turns out Spenser was working with someone else from the FBI who likely killed him. Noreen runs away in fear and Dolezal is grabbed by the internal affairs agents. Noreen ends up shot to death in her car in a parking lot.
They are run off the road by Lennox. He kidnaps the FBI internal affairs men and takes Dolezal out into the desert to drop another bombshell -- he knows who Dolezal really is, because Lennox is secretly a CIA agent who wants to ensure that the arms deal goes through in order to ensure the survival of the military-industrial complex through warfare.
Lennox kills the two agents. He informs Dolezal that he has also kidnapped Lane. Dolezal must find where she hid the $250,000 and then meet Lennox on a deserted military base in the White Sands desert.
Dolezal uncovers the money in a briefcase buried in Lane's horse's stall. He beats up an FBI agent whom Meeker had tailing him. He then kidnaps Meeker and takes him out to the White Sands dunes, handcuffing him to a pipe inside an abandoned building.
Dolezal explains that Lennox is CIA, that the FBI will be arriving soon and that Meeker can either face punishment for killing Spenser and stealing the money or try to flee. Dolezal leaves a gun behind, so that with some effort Meeker is able to grab it and hide behind a bathroom stall.
Lennox arrives and reveals that Lane is alive, down the road a few miles. Dolezal has placed the briefcase in the abandoned building, but when Lennox walks in, Meeker shoots and kills him. Dolezal drives away and picks up Lane. He then drops her off at her estate and even though she still has hopes, however remote, that he'll stay with her, he explains that he loves his wife and needs to return home to his family. Before leaving, he hands her a plastic garbage bag containing the $250,000 she had obtained through her pseudo-fund raising event.
A small army of FBI arrive in cars and helicopters. Meeker has broken the pipe he was cuffed to, escaped from the abandoned building, and is running on the White Sands desert with the briefcase. Dolezal has left the original $500,000 he was originally suspected of stealing so that the FBI will no longer be after him, but one of the agents notices footprints going out into the White Sands and so they head off in pursuit. Just as the FBI catches up with him, Meeker stumbles and drops the briefcase, causing it to open. It does not have any money in it, just sand.
Mimi Rogers
has a cameo role
as Molly, wife of Ray Dolezal
magazine wrote that the storyline was both predictable, and, when Lennox is revealed to be a CIA agent, utterly confusing. Most reviewers did feel that the film's highlights include work from cinematographer Peter Menzies and composer Patrick O'Hearn, but that neither man could make up for the problems with the script. As Desson Howe of the Washington Post wrote, it is never really explained why Dafoe's character has this obsession to find out the truth about Bob's death, or the various other unexplained oddities that occur in the film such as the fact that Mastrantonio falls in love with Dafoe's character for no apparent reason.
with a few special options. It includes English and French language and subtitle options, a filmography of the some of the cast, and trailers for this and a few other films by Morgan Creek
.
Roger Donaldson
Roger Donaldson is an Australian-born New Zealand film producer, director and writer who has made numerous successful movies. He was a co-founder of the New Zealand Film Commission.-Life and career:...
and written by Daniel Pyne for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
The movie is about a U.S. southwestern small-town sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
who finds a body in the desert with a suitcase and $500,000. He impersonates the man and stumbles into an FBI investigation. It stars Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is an American actress and singer known for her role as Carmen in The Color of Money, as well as for her roles as Lindsey Brigman in The Abyss, Gina Montana in Scarface, and Maid Marian in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.-Personal life:Mastrantonio was born in Lombard,...
and Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
.
Synopsis
New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal is called to look at a body in the White Sands desert
White Sands, New Mexico
White Sands is a census-designated place in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,323 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Las Cruces Metropolitan Statistical Area...
alongside a suitcase with $500,000 discovered by two tourists. A mortician is content to have the death remain a mystery, but Dolezal sees a chance to escape the boredom of being a family man and a law officer in a small town where not much seems to happen.
They track the victim, Spenser, and his last known residence to a local motel. During the autopsy they find a phone number written on paper inside the stomach. Dolezal calls the number, posing as Spenser, to set up a meeting. At the motel, two females attack him at gunpoint, grab the money and instruct him to meet Gorman Lennox at a restaurant.
Dolezal is intercepted by an FBI agent named Greg Meeker, who informs him that Bob Spenser was an FBI agent working undercover. Now that Dolezal has handed the money over to the bad guys, Meeker concludes he may as well continue to pose as Spenser in an effort to regain the money or help the FBI make a bust.
He meets Lennox and wealthy associate Lane Bodine and learns that the money is being used to buy illegal arms in an effort to fund left-wing freedom fighters that are apparently being slaughtered by right-wing militia somewhere in South America. However, the arms dealers want $250,000 more for the weapons. Meeker, not willing to cough up more money, pushes the responsibility of raising the additional quarter-million dollars on Dolezal. Dolezal ends up romancing his way into Lane's life so that she will attract rich humanitarian donors to donate the needed money.
The plot thickens as two FBI men from internal affairs look for Dolezal, thinking he killed Spenser and took the money. Lane knows that Dolezal is not really Spenser, but she agrees to keep the secret and raise the money because she finds Dolezal an attractive, honest alternative to the violent Lennox.
Dolezal suspects that something else is going on and when he attends a rodeo with Lane and meets Noreen, who had an affair with the real Spenser. It turns out Spenser was working with someone else from the FBI who likely killed him. Noreen runs away in fear and Dolezal is grabbed by the internal affairs agents. Noreen ends up shot to death in her car in a parking lot.
They are run off the road by Lennox. He kidnaps the FBI internal affairs men and takes Dolezal out into the desert to drop another bombshell -- he knows who Dolezal really is, because Lennox is secretly a CIA agent who wants to ensure that the arms deal goes through in order to ensure the survival of the military-industrial complex through warfare.
Lennox kills the two agents. He informs Dolezal that he has also kidnapped Lane. Dolezal must find where she hid the $250,000 and then meet Lennox on a deserted military base in the White Sands desert.
Dolezal uncovers the money in a briefcase buried in Lane's horse's stall. He beats up an FBI agent whom Meeker had tailing him. He then kidnaps Meeker and takes him out to the White Sands dunes, handcuffing him to a pipe inside an abandoned building.
Dolezal explains that Lennox is CIA, that the FBI will be arriving soon and that Meeker can either face punishment for killing Spenser and stealing the money or try to flee. Dolezal leaves a gun behind, so that with some effort Meeker is able to grab it and hide behind a bathroom stall.
Lennox arrives and reveals that Lane is alive, down the road a few miles. Dolezal has placed the briefcase in the abandoned building, but when Lennox walks in, Meeker shoots and kills him. Dolezal drives away and picks up Lane. He then drops her off at her estate and even though she still has hopes, however remote, that he'll stay with her, he explains that he loves his wife and needs to return home to his family. Before leaving, he hands her a plastic garbage bag containing the $250,000 she had obtained through her pseudo-fund raising event.
A small army of FBI arrive in cars and helicopters. Meeker has broken the pipe he was cuffed to, escaped from the abandoned building, and is running on the White Sands desert with the briefcase. Dolezal has left the original $500,000 he was originally suspected of stealing so that the FBI will no longer be after him, but one of the agents notices footprints going out into the White Sands and so they head off in pursuit. Just as the FBI catches up with him, Meeker stumbles and drops the briefcase, causing it to open. It does not have any money in it, just sand.
Cast
- Willem Dafoe as Ray Dolezal
- Mickey Rourke as Gorman Lennox
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Lane Bodine
- Samuel L. Jackson as Greg Meeker
- M. Emmet WalshM. Emmet WalshMichael Emmet Walsh is an American actor who has appeared in over 100 film and television productions.-Life and career:Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Kathrine and Harry Maurice Walsh, Sr., a customs agent...
as Bert Gibson - James RebhornJames RebhornJames Robert Rebhorn is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 television shows, feature films and plays.-Personal life:...
as FBI Agent Flynn - Maura TierneyMaura TierneyMaura Therese Tierney is an American film and television actress, who is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on NewsRadio and Abby Lockhart on the television medical drama ER.-Early life:...
as Noreen - Beth GrantBeth GrantBeth Grant is an American actress. She is known for often playing characters who are conservatives, religious zealots or sticklers for rules....
as Roz Kincaid
Mimi Rogers
Mimi Rogers
Mimi Rogers is an American movie actress and competitive poker player.-Early life:Rogers was born Miriam Spickler in Coral Gables, Florida, the daughter of Philip C...
has a cameo role
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as Molly, wife of Ray Dolezal
Critics
The film opened to mixed reviews. Peter Travers of Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine wrote that the storyline was both predictable, and, when Lennox is revealed to be a CIA agent, utterly confusing. Most reviewers did feel that the film's highlights include work from cinematographer Peter Menzies and composer Patrick O'Hearn, but that neither man could make up for the problems with the script. As Desson Howe of the Washington Post wrote, it is never really explained why Dafoe's character has this obsession to find out the truth about Bob's death, or the various other unexplained oddities that occur in the film such as the fact that Mastrantonio falls in love with Dafoe's character for no apparent reason.
DVD
The film is available on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
with a few special options. It includes English and French language and subtitle options, a filmography of the some of the cast, and trailers for this and a few other films by Morgan Creek
Morgan Creek
Morgan Creek is a stream in Mono and Inyo counties of eastern California, in the western United States.It flows from the high eastern Sierra Nevada in the Inyo National Forest, through Round Valley, to its confluence with Pine Creek near the Owens River northeast of Bishop in the Owens...
.