The Los Angeles Series
Director: Christopher Nolan
Protagonists
- Sean Patrick Flanery as Sean 'Alpha Four' Kenney
- Mark Wahlberg as Russell 'The Marine' Atkinson
- Ashley Judd as Alexandra 'Alex' Cantrell
- Aaron Paul as Daniel 'Blackjack' Stevens
- Amber Heard as Brooklyn Townsend
- Ellie Goulding as Kristen 'DJ Dreams' Emerson
- Aubrey 'Drake' Graham as Devon Franklin
- Lonnie Rashid 'Common' Lynn as David 'The Genius' Palmer
- Lucas Black as Logan 'Aces' Hunter
- Summer Glau as Rebecca 'Overseer' Murselli
- Ronda Rowsey as Sarah Rowland
- Latarsha Rose as Vanessa Davison
- Jessica Alba as Sophia 'Starfighter' Arrelano
- Gal Gadot as Cameron 'Shadow' Almasi
- Dallas Sam as Sydney 'Queen Sniper' Reilly
- Zoë Kravitz as Talia 'Indy' Rosario
- Donald Sutherland as Michael Brewer
Antagonists
- Dean Norris as FBI Special Agent Derek Richards
- Nicholas Hoult as Alexander Kozhanov
- Oleg Takatrov as Viktor 'Dark Russian' Kozhanov
- Tyron Woodley as Jeremy 'Steeler' Robinson
- Powers Boothe as William Tanner
To Live And Die in L.A. (2013)
Los Angeles is one of the wealthiest places on Earth, but it also happens to be one of the most active in terms of both what happens on the surface and what happens beneath in the shadows. In this is Irish master criminal Sean Kenney (Sean Patrick Flanery), small-time Midwestern hustlers Logan Hunter (Lucas Black) and Daniel Stevens (Aaron Paul) who are in LA to make it big, very-aggressive former Marine Russell Atkinson (Mark Wahlberg) and gangbanger Devon Franklin (Aubrey 'Drake' Graham). The five meet each other by way of Devon and Russell meeting each other in a strip club and becoming involved in a number of small-time robberies, while Kenney arrives in Los Angeles and hires Logan and Daniel to help him scout out scores. After Devon and Russell hit a small bank that Sean had been scoping out, he seeks out and finds Devon and Russell, joining forces with them to go after much bigger scores.
After a job at a jewellery store set up by Sean and his genius tech genius and money launderer David Palmer (Lonnie Rashid 'Common' Lynn) gets them a fair bit of cash to play with, both Sean and Daniel find women that they find themselves attracted to - waitress Brooklyn Townsend (Amber Heard) and Club DJ Kristen Emerson (Ellie Goulding), both of whom are trying hard to move on forward with their lives on the right side of the law, but find their old connections make that hard. Kristen's dating Sean makes for a problem with Kristen's old boyfriend, Alexander Kozhanov (Nicholas Hoult) and his father Viktor (Oleg Takatrov), both of which know well who Sean is. At the same time, Devon's past also comes back to haunt him in the form of gang leader Jeremy 'Steeler' Robinson (Tyron Woodley), who feels that Devon has disrespected him for not cutting him into the laundering of the money earned from their jobs. Making matters worse is that the FBI, who is after Russell for an incident where he beat a man to death in a fight outside the Pearl Harbor naval base, and the FBI agent after them, Special Agent Derek Richards (Dean Norris), has a particular personal demand to settle the case.
Sean and his crew are hired to break a noted gangbanger out of jail, but the job goes south and exposes the crew to others. That puts Richards on their case, and his attempt to arrest Russell turns into a gunfight where one of the hired guns brought for the job is shot dead by the LAPD. After going into hiding, Sean angrily confronts Russell about his past, which ends in a fistfight between the two. Devon's attempt to go underground doesn't go much better, as he goes to his home to find Steeler there, whose boys beat Devon's girlfriend Vanessa (Latarsha Rose) nearly to death while he watches. Devon saves his girlfriend's life, but is more than a little enraged by Steeler's actions. At the hospital, he is approached by Derek, who tells him that if he snitches on Sean he can keep him out of jail and protect Vanessa. This is witnessed by Logan, who keeps his peace on it, and Devon tells Derek that he won't break his friends' trust.
Desperate to stay underground, Sean turns to LA's femme fatale assassin Alexandra Cantrell (Ashley Judd), who is open to helping Sean but on the grounds that the favor is returned - unknown to Sean at that point is that Alex is long-time friends with Kristen. Logan confronts Devon in front of Daniel, Russell and the girls, and Russell loses his temper with Devon and attacks him, the two being separated by Brooklyn, who barks back that if Devon was gonna sell him out to the FBI that he would have done so and that if he had Russell would be in jail now. Sean sets up a big job robbing a safe containing gold held by secretive businessman William Tanner (Powers Boothe). The job is going properly until Richards shows up in the middle of it with a sizable number of FBI agents in tow, forcing the crew to split or be arrested and in the process blowing their cover, resulting in a high-profile shootout in which Logan is badly wounded and exposing what's happening. Sean realizes that he's pushed his luck one too many times, and after getting away he calls Kristen to say that he can't come see her any time soon, as it would be too dangerous for both of them. At the same time Logan, who is dying, tries to talk to Daniel and say he's sorry for being in the middle of this mess, and that he should never leave behind who he cares about. Logan dies, leaving Daniel to call Brooklyn and visit her at her apartment. He has no sooner done that than two gunmen hired by Boothe show up, having followed Daniel right to her. Daniel escapes but cannot stop Boothe's men from attacking Brooklyn, but his fears are beaten when Alexandra, who had also been watching, shows up and beats back the two gunmen, allowing her and Brooklyn to escape. Devon tries to go see his girlfriend as well, but sees that the police are staking out the hospital she is at, and that him seeing her would get him arrested in short order. He calls her instead from a pay phone, vowing that he has not forgotten about her.
At Alexandra's loft, Brooklyn despairs over her not being likely to see Daniel again, but get surprised when two friends of Alexandra's show up - ex-Special Forces soldier Brooke Rowland (Ronda Rowsey) and renowned hacker Rebecca Murselli (Summer Glau). Surprised at their presence, Brooklyn asks what's going on, and gets the response "You didn't really think we were gonna leave Daniel and Sean and the others out to dry, did you?"
The movie ends with Kristen and Vanessa coming to see Alexandra and Brooklyn and being introduced to Rebecca and Sarah and with Sean, Daniel and Devon all separately lamenting what they have to do to extricate themselves from the mess they had created, unaware that their lovers were working on doing just that for them....
City of Angels (2015)
The movie begins with Brooklyn speaking of what one will do for the people they love, with that transitioning to the conversation between Alexandra, Brooklyn, Sarah, Vanessa, Kristen and Rebecca coming to a decision on what to do - they will compromise Agent Richards, then acquire a large enough sum of money that they can buy themselves allies for long enough to take over Los Angeles for themselves. Kristen comments that the amount of money needed to do this would be astronomical, and if they are gonna do this it would be best to go for the mother lode - the First Reserve Bank of Los Angeles, the third-largest precious metals depository in the United States. Alexandra has reservations about that, commenting on the incredible difficulty of the option, but both Rebecca and Sarah are for the idea, commenting that "this option is gonna be insane no matter where we go for the money. Why not aim for the crown? What have we got to lose?" Alexandra goes along, accepting the point and hoping that the confidence of the others is not misplaced.
The crew splits up and goes to an old friend of Alex and Sarah's, long retired CIA officer Michael Brewer (Donald Sutherland), who sends them off in the direction of helicopter pilot Sophia Arrelano (Jessica Alba) who was kicked out of the Army for turning down advances from a superior officer and then talking about it, shooters Cameron Almasi (Gal Gadot) and Sydney Reilly (Dallas Sam) and driver Talia Rosario (Lake Bell). The team then begins the complicated task of stealing from one of the most secure banks on Earth, as well as compromising Agent Richards and figuring who can and can't be trusted.
TBC....
