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''White Sands'' is a 1992 American
crime thriller film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
directed by
Roger Donaldson Roger Lindsey Donaldson (born 15 November 1945) is an Australian-born New Zealand film director, producer and writer whose films include the 1981 relationship drama '' Smash Palace'', and a run of titles shot in the United States, including t ...
and starring
Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, t ...
,
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (born November 17, 1958) is an American actress and singer. She made her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of ''West Side Story'', and went on to appear in the 1983 film '' Scarface'' as Al Pacino's character's sist ...
,
Samuel L. Jackson Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him ...
, and
Mickey Rourke Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke Jr. (; born September 16, 1952) is an American actor and former boxer who has appeared primarily as a leading man in drama, action, and thriller films. During the star of the 1980s, Rourke played supporting roles i ...
. Written by Daniel Pyne for
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
, the film 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 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
investigation.


Plot

Ray Dolezal, a bored
Torrance County, New Mexico Torrance County is a county located in the center of the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,383. The county seat is Estancia. The geographic center of New Mexico is located in Torrance County, southwest of ...
Deputy Sheriff, investigates an apparent suicide in the desert. Alongside the body of Bob Spencer is a suitcase containing $500,000. During the autopsy, they find a digested piece of paper with a phone number; Dolezal, posing as Spencer, calls the number and goes to a meeting, where he is robbed and instructed to meet Gorman Lennox at a restaurant.
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
agent Greg Meeker intercepts Dolezal and informs him that Spencer was an undercover agent. Now that Dolezal has lost the money, Meeker suggests he continue posing as Spencer to recover the money or help arrest Lennox. Dolezal meets Lennox and his wealthy associate Lane Bodine and learns the money is to arm left-wing freedom fighters in South America. The arms dealers demo the guns for Dolezal and Lennox but demand an additional $250,000 due to unforeseen expenses. Meeker pushes the responsibility on Dolezal, who romances his way into Lane's life so she will attract rich humanitarian donors to fund the deal. Two FBI internal affairs agents suspect Dolezal of killing Spencer and stealing the money. Dolezal is forced to admit to Lane he is not really Spencer, but she agrees to help raise the money because she finds Dolezal a better alternative to the volatile Lennox. Dolezal learns from Noreen, who had an affair with the real Spencer, that he was working with an FBI agent who likely killed him. Noreen runs away at the sight of Meeker, and the internal affairs agents grab Dolezal. Lennox runs the agents off the road; Dolezal flees and returns to Lane. He discovers Noreen shot dead and a Polaroid of her with Spencer and Meeker. Dolezal breaks into a surveillance van outside Lane's house and beats up the FBI agent. He accuses Meeker of killing Spencer and Noreen. Meeker admits he took the $500,000 without authorization to steal it and capture Lennox at the same time, but Spencer lost his nerve and wanted out. Meeker confronted him out in the desert and convinced him to shoot himself. He tells Dolezal the Polaroid proves nothing, and no one will believe his word against that of a minority agent with a spotless record. Lennox meets Dolezal and reveals the two internal affairs agents tied up in the trunk of his car. They drive into the desert, where Lennox says he knows Dolezal is not Spencer, because Lennox is really a
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
agent who wants the arms deal to go through, ensuring the survival of the
military–industrial complex The expression military–industrial complex (MIC) describes the relationship between a country's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. A driving factor behind the r ...
. Lennox kills the two agents and informs Dolezal that he has Lane hostage. Dolezal must find where she hid the $250,000 and 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 kidnaps Meeker, takes him to White Sands, and handcuffs him to a pipe inside an abandoned building. Dolezal explains that Lennox is CIA, the FBI will be arriving soon, and Meeker can either face punishment or try to flee. Dolezal leaves a gun behind, so Meeker grabs it and hides inside a bathroom stall. Lennox arrives and reveals that Lane is waiting at the base entrance. Dolezal placed the briefcase in the abandoned building, but when Lennox walks in, Meeker shoots and kills him. After disabling Lennox's car, Dolezal picks up Lane. He drops her off at her estate and explains that he needs to return to his family. He hands her the $250,000 she had obtained through her pseudo-fund raising event. The FBI arrives in cars and helicopters. Meeker breaks the pipe he was cuffed to and runs through the desert with the briefcase. Dolezal left the original $500,000 he was originally suspected of stealing so the FBI will stop investigating him, but one of the agents notices footprints going out into White Sands, and they head off in pursuit. As the FBI catches up with him, Meeker stumbles and drops the briefcase, which contains nothing but sand.


Cast


Reception

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, 44% of 16 critics reviews were positive, and the average rating was 5.10/10.
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
assigned the film a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale. Peter Travers of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' wrote that the storyline was both predictable and, when Lennox is revealed to be a CIA agent, utterly confusing. Desson Howe of ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' wrote that 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.
Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...
gave the film two stars and called it "competently performed (even by Rourke) but with little else to distinguish it from dozens of its ilk”. The film grossed $9 million in the United States and Canada and $18 million worldwide.


Home media

The film is available on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
with a few special options. It includes English- and French-language and subtitle options, a filmography of some of the cast, and trailers for this and a few other films by Morgan Creek. It was released on
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on April 23, 2019.


References


External links

* {{Roger Donaldson 1992 films 1992 crime films American crime films 1990s English-language films Morgan Creek Productions films American police detective films Tularosa Basin Films directed by Roger Donaldson Films produced by Scott Rudin 1990s American films