
	TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2002

#10

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#10-CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Frank Abagnale, Jr. (DiCaprio) worked as a doctor, a lawyer and as a co-pilot for a major airline - all before his 18th birthday. A master of deception, he was also a brilliant forger whose skill gave him his first real claim to fame. At the age of 17, Frank became the most successful bank robber in the history of the United States. FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (Hanks) had made it his prime mission to capture Frank and bring him to justice, but Frank is always one step ahead of him, baiting him to continue the chase.

#9-CHANGING LANES

An arrogant lawyer and a down-and-out businessman become involved in a minor traffic accident in Manhattan. As a result, the two men accidentally swap briefcases, the contents of which cause a heated battle with legal as well as financial repercussions.

#8-ONE HOUR PHOTO

Sy Parrish is the middle-aged manager of the photo-printing department of a large Wal-Mart-like emporium. He is a devoted perfectionist, providing service to the self-obsessed inhabitants of this insular community, but he lives a rather lonely existence, eating his meals in the local coffee shops and going home to a nearly bare apartment. However, Sy harbors a secret fantasy. Having developed the pictures of the Yorkin clan, a model American family with their two kids, for years, he has begun to see himself as part of it: "Uncle" Sy, who buys toys for the kids and awaits their homecoming while sitting on the couch. Eventually the fantasy begins to blur with reality, and Sy's projection into the Yorkins' life prompts a demand for order and harmony that leads inexorably to calamity.

#7-GANGS OF NEW YORK

Set in New York City, 1840-1863, a young man named Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Bill "The Butcher" Poole (Daniel Day-Lewis), the man who killed his father. Though he secures the help of pickpocket Jenny Everdeane, the task at hand may be more dangerous than Amsterdam ever imagined when he realizes that his father was murdered as a result of gang warfare between the powerful Manhattan gangs. Amid the crooked cops and corrupt politicians of the Tammany Hall era, political enforcer Bill Poole stands out as only one scoundrel in the crime-plagued Five Points section of lower Manhattan in the early 1860s.

#6-EMPIRE

Victor Rosa (John Leguizamo) is all about the mighty dollar and fashions himself as a businessman on par with Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Bill Gates. With an iron fist, he runs a successful "street pharmaceutical" business that peddles a heroin mix he has named Empire. His beautiful fiancée, Carmen, a Baruch College student, befriends a classmate with an investment-banker boyfriend, Jack Wimmer. Victor meets Jack, and they instantly connect. Both are hard-core businessmen from two different sides of the legal fence. When Jack offers Victor a piece of the action on the stock market, he sees his ticket out of the violent streets of the South Bronx and jumps at the opportunity. But there is a bigger price to be paid than clean money for his gorgeous new Soho lifestyle. For the first time, Victor is confronted with a price tag that he will find difficult to pay.

#5-SIGNS

Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan follows up THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE with his new feature film, SIGNS, a thriller set in Bucks County, Pennsylvania focusing on the mysterious appearance of a five-hundred-foot design of circles and lines carved into a family's crops. Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, the family patriarch, who is tested in his journey to find the truth behind the unfolding mystery. Joaquin Phoenix is Merrill Hess, brother to Graham and a former minor league baseball star.

#4-FRAILTY

The story follows an FBI investigation in present day Texas. Fenton Meiks, a young man, approaches the lead FBI investigator, claiming he knows the identity of a serial killer who calls himself "God's Hands." The FBI agent is curious, but unimpressed until Fenton reveals that the killer is his younger brother Adam. Fenton recounts in a series of flashbacks, how he and his brother grew up in a very loving family, raised by their widowed father. All that changed, the day his father awoke, believing he had been visited by an angel and given a mission to destroy "demons" - seemingly normal looking people, who walked this earth as pure evil. Fenton's father, and then his brother Adam, swore to carry out this 'divine' mission. Fenton refused to participate in the killings. Out of loyalty however, he refused to go to the police, until now. The FBI agent follows Fenton to the family's rose garden only to be surprised that neither evil nor innocence are what they seem.

#3-INSOMNIA

A sleep-deprived detective is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. Forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the primary suspect, events escalate and the detective finds his own stability dangerously threatened.

#2-ROAD TO PERDITION

In Depression-era Chicago, hit man Michael O'Sullivan (Tom Hanks) is known to friends and enemies alike as the "Angel of Death". Uncompromising in his work, O'Sullivan is just as devoted to his private life as an upstanding husband and father of two young boys. But when those worlds collide, taking the lives of his wife and younger son, O'Sullivan and his surviving son leave their sedate home life behind and embark on a startling journey of revenge.

#1-ADAPTATION

The academy award nominated creators of Being John Malkovich take you on another head trip. Starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, and Tilda Swinton, this is a fascinating "adaptation" of the off-beat book "The Orchid Thief."