Look what we found while combing the listings in Amazon’s Instant Video Store: right now, several excellent Matthew McConaughey films are priced to own for $8 or less! Note that all descriptions below are from IMDB.
Frailty (R, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $2.99 to rent in SD / $3.99 in HD, $7.99 to buy in SD / $9.99 in HD)
Fenton Meeks (McConaughey) comes forth to tell the FBI that his brother Adam may be the serial killer who calls himself The God’s Hand Killer, whom the FBI has been searching for.
The film uses flashbacks to show Meeks’ childhood with a father (Bill Paxton) who believed he was on a mission from God to destroy demons that inhabit human bodies.
Fenton saw his dad as evil, while Adam saw him as a hero.
– Written by Anonymous
KF on KND Editor’s Note: This is the movie that first convinced me McConaughey is much more than a pretty face and six-pack abs. This movie is absorbing, chilling, and really makes you think. One of my all-time favorite thrillers.
A Time To Kill (R, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $2.99 to rent in SD / $3.99 in HD, $5.88 to buy in SD / $7.88 in HD)
After Carl Lee’s (Samuel L. Jackson) 10-year-old daughter Tonya is brutally raped he…takes the law into his own hands and guns them down in cold blood inside the courthouse on the day of their arraignments. Young Jake Brigance (McConaughey), struggling to keep his law practice afloat, suddenly finds himself defending Carl Lee against murder charges—a not-so-popular position with some of the locals in Clanton, Mississippi.
Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock), a stellar law student from Ole Miss, offers her services to Jake just for the opportunity to help with the case and eventually convinces him to take her on. In the meantime, the K.K.K. (at the prompting of a brother of one of the rapists) plants burning crosses on Jake’s lawn, attempts to bomb his house, and takes a shot at him.
To ensure their safety, Jake sends his wife and little daughter to Gulfport to stay with his in-laws. As tension in Canton reaches fever pitch and the N.A.A.C.P. and K.K.K. riot on the courthouse lawn, a different kind of tension rises between Jake and Ellen.
– Written by Mark Fleetwood
KF on KND Editor’s Note: The excellent cast also includes Kevin Spacey as D.A. Rufus Buckley, Oliver Platt, Donald Sutherland and son Kiefer Sutherland, Charles S. Dutton, Brenda Fricker, and Ashley Judd in a small, early acting role.
The Newton Boys (PG-13, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $2.99 to rent in SD / $3.99 in HD, $6.99 to buy in SD / $9.99 in HD)
Four Newton brothers are a poor farmer family in the 1920s.
The oldest of them, Willis (McConaughey), one day realizes that there’s no future in the fields and offers his brothers the chance to become a bank robbers.
Soon the family agrees. They become very famous robbers, and five years later execute the greatest train robbery in American history.
– Written by Anonymous
KF on KND Editor’s Note: This film is based on a true story, and also stars Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, Vincent D’Onofrio and Julianna Marguiles. Also watch for Dwight Yoakam in a smaller role.
Fool’s Gold (PG-13, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $2.99 to rent in SD / $3.99 in HD, $7.99 to buy in SD / $9.99 in HD)
Benjamin Finnegan (McConaughey) is a deep-sea treasure hunter certain he’s onto the find of the century in waters near an island close to Key West owned by a murderous rap star (Kevin Hart) to whom Ben is in debt.
Ben’s flat broke and recently divorced from Tess (Hudson), his long-time research and diving partner whom he still loves. She’s nearby, working as a steward aboard the yacht of Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), a multimillionaire.
The rapper has hired a rival treasurer hunter.
Can Ben convince Nigel to bankroll his search, convince Tess to work with him, keep the rapper and his thugs at bay, and find a Spanish treasure hidden for centuries and rich beyond imagination?
– Written by jhailey
KF on KND Editor’s Note: If you loved the pairing of Hudson and McConaughey in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, or the rip-roaring McConaughey adventure Sahara, don’t miss this one! It blends the best elements of those two movies.
The Wedding Planner (PG-13, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $7.99 to buy in SD / $12.99 in HD)
Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) is the wedding planner. She’s ambitious, hard-working, extremely organized, and she knows exactly what to do and say to make any wedding a spectacular event.
But when Mary falls (literally) for a handsome doctor (McConaughey) her busy yet uncomplicated life is turned upside down – he’s the groom in the biggest wedding of her career!
Will she help him walk down the aisle with his internet tycoon girlfriend, or will Mary finally get to be the bride herself? When it comes to love, you can never plan what’s going to happen.
– Written by Ron Borgstedt
KF on KND Editor’s Note: I’m not generally a fan of rom-coms, but this one is intelligent, funny, and manages to avoid melodrama, thanks in large part to the strong cast which includes Kevin Pollack, Judy Greer, Fred Willard and Kathy Najimy in supporting roles.