Blackmail for Beginners

Carlo, a former mobster, is abducted by five privileged young men desperate to raise a $2 million ransom to save the sister of a friend. As Carlo plays mind games, however, his captors splinter -- each wondering whether one of their own had a hand in the crime.

Two friends are drawn into a seedy underworld of extortion and violence when they try to blackmail a gang of bank robbers.

Jerry and his two pals, Russ and Syd, are just looking for some easy money to help them break out of their nowhere lives in their nowhere town. Despite a bungled jewelry store heist which exposes their incompetence as criminals, a fateful event (and an old black-and-white film) convinces them that they can pull off an armored-truck robbery. While they are busy plotting their caper, their dysfunctional families spin out of control, all around them.

Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.

Two boys, still grieving the death of their mother, find themselves the unwitting benefactors of a bag of bank robbery loot in the week before the United Kingdom switches its official currency to the Euro. What's a kid to do?

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Mysterious Orfamay Quest hires Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother. Though the job seems simple enough, it leads Marlowe into the underbelly of the city, turning up leads who are murdered with ice picks, exotic dancers, blackmailed television stars, and self-preserving gangsters. Soon, Marlowe's life is on the line right along with his case.

Jerry, a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge, a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant - investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!

When their daughter is abducted by experienced kidnappers, the Jennings turn the tables on their seemingly fool-proof plan.

Two brothers barely scrape by as their father continues to gamble and drink away the money they do bring home. They hatch a plan for a robbery but at what price?

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

Spiritualist Blanche Tyler and her cab-driving boyfriend encounter a pair of serial kidnappers while trailing a missing heir in California.

A criminal mastermind recruits a group of young bank employees to steal 80 million dollars in one of the largest bank heist in US history.

When two brothers organize the robbery of their parents' jewelry store, the job goes horribly wrong, triggering a series of events that send them and their family hurtling towards a shattering climax.

In 1977, former real estate developer Tony Kiritsis puts a dead man's switch on himself and the mortgage banker who did him wrong, demanding $5 million and a personal apology.

A former child art prodigy and second generation petty thief arranges to buy his way out of prison to spend time with his ailing son, only to be forced to alter his plans and commit one more job for the man who financed his release.

Without the security of the job he wants or the future he dreamed of, Paul Dynan plans the perfect crime to help his struggling family – abduct the socialite children of three wealthy men and collect a ransom of $3-million dollars. Over the course of one long night, Paul and his accomplices hold the rich kids hostage awaiting the ransom with little idea of the secrets that will surface between the fathers when they are forced to choose between their children and their money.

Shaun Russell takes her son and daughter on a weekend getaway to her late father's secluded, high-tech vacation home in the countryside. The family soon gets an unwelcome surprise when four men break into the house to find hidden money. After managing to escape, Shaun must now figure out a way to turn the tables on the desperate thieves and save her captive children.

A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. As a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino. When things go awry they're forced to hijack a city bus.

Bob Saginowski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood's past where friends, families, and foes all work together to make a living - no matter the cost.