- Tune in for World’s Favourite Suspense Flicks on the UAE’s Popular English TV Channel
If August was all about comedy, September will be a month for thrillers on Dubai One, the UAE’s English language TV station.
With just about a month to go before the weather improves
, this is the perfect time to enjoy the indoors with thrillers that pack gunfights, double-crossing, and secret agent-style hijinx.
Coca-Cola sponsors a stellar lineup of ‘shoot-em-up’ specials, including Double Whammy starring Dennis Leary as a cop who becomes the laughing stock of New York after his back gives out while on the pursuit of a mass murder. Can he see past his physical main and mental grief for his dead wife and child, prevent a murder and find new love with his beautiful chiropractor (Elizabeth Hurley)? The 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde takes viewers back to a classic action thriller starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the infamous couple who terrorized the United States in the 1920s.
Fallen takes a turn to the supernatural with Denzel Washington as Detective John Hobbes who has sent a convicted serial killer to his execution, only to see eerie remnants of the man return after his death. Hobbes realizes he is dealing with a fallen angel and must prevent this demon from killing again. Showtime serves up a helping of comedy with the gunshots. Robert de Niro and Eddie Murphy play cops who are forced to allow a reality TV crew to film an investigation to raise funds for a pricey lawsuit. However, the TV crew constantly tries to change the real-life cops to be more like the ones on TV!
Lacnor also sponsors a bevy of evocative titles during the month. Batman and Robin pits the dynamic duo against evil Mr. Freeze and horrible Poison Ivy, starring Arnold Shwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, and Elle Macpherson. Gandhi, winner of eight Academy Awards, brings the story of Mahatma Gandhi to the silver screen. Ben Kingsley’s Oscar turn as the Indian peace activist and Independence campaigner is set against an astonishing backdrop — one scene contains 400,000 extras, a Guinness World Record!
Simone stars Al Pacino as a failing director whose career is saved by a hot new actress. The only problem is, she doesn’t exist! The director must keep his virtual star ‘alive’ with a series of increasingly complicated lies. Keeping Mum also investigates untruths, in a Mary Poppins-like story of an elderly housekeeper who arrives to care for a typically dysfunctional family. Mum Gloria (Kristen Scott-Thomas) is having an affair with a golf pro (Patrick Swayze) while her oblivious pastor husband (Rowan Atkinson) writes services and their two children blunder through adolescence.
Politics buffs will find fertile ground with a number of thrillers set in Washington. All the President’s Men, the 1975 classic directed by Alan J Pakula, stars Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. Both play journalists who persevered to blow the lid off the story of a burglary that turned into the Watergate Scandal and toppled President Nixon. Oliver Stone’s JFK also plumbs presidential history, investigating the events surrounding the Dallas assassination in the director’s trademark style and with the help of a stellar cast: John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland, Gary Oldman, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Kevin Costner.
Speaking of conspiracies, Conspiracy Theory delves into the murky world of government cover-ups. Mel Gibson stars as a conspiracy theory-spouting taxi driver in love with a stranger (Julia Roberts) who turns out to be the only person he can trust after one of his conspiracy theories comes true. In a cat-and-mouse game Enemy of the State, Will Smith plays a mild-mannered lawyer who becomes a mark for secret security forces after a former friend plants some incriminating evidence on him. His only hope is a disillusioned former agent played by Gene Hackman.
A few unclassifiable gems round out the month’s selection. A Perfect World, starring Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood, follows an unlikely relationship that develops between two escaped convicts and a young boy that they kidnap. What starts out as a crime turns into something infinitely more complicated. Seven Years in Tibet features Brad Pitt’s career-defining performance as Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer who escapes from Austria to Tibet, where he meets the Dalai Lama.
Ransom stars Mel Gibson, Rene Russo and Gary Sinise. Gibson plays Tom Mullen, a rich man whose son is kidnapped. When the drop for the ransom goes suddenly wrong, Mullen turns the tables on the kidnappers and turns the search for them into a bounty hunt. Last but not the least, Duplex stars Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller as a young couple who move into their dream home, only to have it become a nightmare thanks to their ‘innocent’ neighbour. This hilarious comedy pits the couple against nice old Mrs. Connelly as their thoughts turn to the inevitable: murder.
With so many titles to choose from, it is little wonder that Dubai One
TV remains the most popular English-language channel in the UAE.
Details of show schedules are available on:
http://www.dmi.ae/dubaione/.
