Movies - At Close Range

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	Movies - At Close Range

At Close Range is based on the real life rural Pennsylvania crime family led by Bruce Johnston, Sr. which operated during the 1960s and 1970s. The film was released April 18 1986, starring Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Mary Stuart Masterson, Millie Perkins, Candy Clark and Crispin Glover. The film is directed by James Foley.

The film stars Christopher Walken as the leader of an organized crime family consisting of his brothers and close friends. One night his estranged oldest son (Sean Penn) contacts him after a fight he had with his mother's boyfriend. Eventually he becomes involved with his father's criminal endeavors, resulting in his starting his own gang with his brother (Chris Penn) and friends. The boys get excited at the idea of easy money and decide one night to attempt a daring heist, which results in their arrest by the police. Their father believes that his sons and their friends will inform the police about his criminal activities so he decides to attack his son's girlfriend (Mary Stuart Masterson) as a warning to his eldest son. The attack results in the opposite effect as Sean Penn's character begins informing the authorities about his father's activities including a murder he witnessed of a snitch. When the father's name is given to the grand jury by his own son he feels his only recourse is to eliminate every witness that can connect himself and his crew with his sons and their crew, and he has them killed one by one. He murders his youngest son himself but orders a hit against his eldest son and his son's girlfriend. She dies and he survives and was able to testify against his father.

Trivia

When Christopher Walken
works with guns in films, he always checks them himself before each scene for safety reasons. During the scene near the end of this film (the confrontation between his character and Sean Penn
's), before the director yelled, "Action," Penn ran off camera and shouted, "Give me the other gun!" He then returned to Walken and did the scene. This cut made it into the movie and Walken really was terrified of the gun in his face.

Based on the actual crimes of Bruce Johnston, Sr., in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Actress Eileen Ryan
who plays Sean Penn
's and Chris Penn
's grandmother in the movie, is their real-life mother.

The role of Brad Whitewood, Sr. was offered to Robert De Niro
, who turned it down because he felt the character was too dark.

Cast

Sean Penn
(Brad Whitewood, Jr.)
Christopher Walken
(Brad Whitewood, Sr.)
Mary Stuart Masterson
(Terry)
Chris Penn
(Tommy Whitewood)
Millie Perkins
(Julie)
Eileen Ryan
(Grandma)
Tracey Walter (Uncle Patch Whitewood)
R.D. Call (Dickie)
David Strathairn
(Tony Pine)
J.C. Quinn (Boyd)
Candy Clark
(Mary Sue)
Jake Dengel (Lester)
Kiefer Sutherland
(Tim)
Crispin Glover
(Lucas)
Stephen Geoffreys
(Aggie)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for At Close Range ]

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