Money Talks(1997)

SHORT VERSION:
Franklin manages to acquire Villard’s $15 million worth of diamonds hidden in a car in an auto auction by tricking James’ soon-to-be-father-in-law Guy into outbidding Villard for it, but shortly afterward, Villard finds and captures James. Villard later calls Franklin and tries to arrange a time and place where they will swap the diamonds for James, but Franklin says that HE will decide when and where the exchange will be, then hangs up. Villard decides to yield to Franklin and calls him back, and Franklin says that the deal will go down at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum’s 50-yard line at 3:00 a.m. He then calls the gangster Carmine (to whom he owes money), LAPD Detective Pickett and his partner Williams (who are pursuing him), Coliseum technician Roland, and his arms dealer friend Aaron and tells them all to come to the arena to meet him, hoping that their presences will better his and James’ odds of survival. Pickett and Williams meet Franklin first, and Pickett soon reveals that he is a dirty cop on Villard’s payroll when he says he wants the diamonds and then kills Williams. Villard then suddenly appears in a helicopter with James and shines its spotlight in Pickett’s face before demanding for his diamonds, and the distraction enables Franklin to punch out Pickett and run.

Carmine and his goons arrive soon after, as does Aaron and his bodyguard and a small army of mercenaries working for Villard, and the Coliseum quickly turns into a war zone, with Carmine, his goons, Pickett, Villard’s right-hand man Debray, and most of the mercenaries all ending up dead. James manages to get free from the chopper and heads after Franklin, but not before putting several unpinned grenades under one of the landing skids. He and Franklin eventually get chased by Villard and the surviving mercenaries up to one of the statues, and Franklin takes out the diamonds that he had hid in one of its lights. He then throws them all over the steps leading up to the statue, and as the mercenaries scramble to snatch them up, scores of police officers arrive, having been called there by Roland. Villard tries to escape in his helicopter, but the grenades detonate as soon as he gets some lift, and he dies in the explosion.

James makes a news report on the events and clears his and Franklin’s names, plus he gets his job back at Channel 12 News. He later weds Grace, with Franklin serving as his best man, but at the point where James has to give Grace her ring, Franklin shows that it has one of the diamonds on it (as well as his own earring), and he admits to James that he kept some of them.

LONG VERSION:
One night, Franklin (Chris Tucker) and James (Charlie Sheen) head down to the Red Camel nightclub to investigate it, since Franklin remembered that Dubray (Frank Bruynbroek) had a stamp on his hand from that club back when he and Villard’s (Gérard Ismaël) mercenaries first broke him (Franklin) and Villard out of the prison bus. After being denied entry, Franklin calls the place and makes a bomb threat to clear it out, and he sees Dubray emerge and points him out to James. However, when they tail him down an alley, they find themselves having to outrun a car occupied by him and Villard. They evade them by breaking into a deli, but after spotting a surveillance camera recording them, they escape out the back door. Villard and Dubray then come inside, shoot out the surveillance camera before it can record them, and then murder the shopkeeper when he comes in to check out the noise before they give up the pursuit. Franklin and James then pay a visit to Aaron (Michael Wright), an illegal arms dealer and Franklin’s childhood friend, and Franklin is able to convince him to give him a few handguns, and Aaron tells him to call him if he gets in trouble. The next morning, the cops check out the deli’s surveillance tape and interpret Franklin and James as the shopkeeper’s killers, so James is now also wanted for a crime he didn’t commit.

Franklin and James go to the home of James’ fiancée Grace (Heather Locklear) and her parents Guy (Paul Sorvino) and Connie (Veronica Cartwright), and while James goes inside to talk to Grace, Franklin checks the newspaper and finds an advertisement for an auto expo auctioning off European vehicles scheduled for later that day. Remembering how Villard and Dubray were talking about acquiring $15 million in diamonds stashed in a Jaguar that is on the auction list, Franklin is able to manipulate Guy into going to the expo with him ostensibly to purchase a car as a wedding gift for James and Grace, but really planning to have him outbid Villard for the car. Meanwhile, James finds out from Grace about how she now knows who Franklin is after having earlier seen a TV news report on him (he lied to her and her parents by saying he was the son of singer Vic Damone), and he tells her that Franklin is no murderer. She then informs him that the cops are after him now as well, which she also learned from the same news report. James then spots Franklin and Guy departing for the expo and drives after them.

At the expo, Franklin spots Villard and Dubray in the audience, and when he sees them beginning to bid on the Jaguar when it comes up, he has Guy start putting in competing bids. After Villard and Dubray spot Franklin and start a bidding war for the car, Franklin excuses himself to use the payphone to call the cops and get them to come here. Villard dispatches Dubray to take out Franklin, but he catches him in the middle of the call and Franklin tells him who he is speaking with, forcing him to return to Villard and warn him that the cops are coming and they need to go. Franklin then gets confronted by James, who tells him of how he, too, is now a wrongfully accused killer, and he then demands for Franklin to tell him why he and Guy are here, but Franklin won’t say. He initiates a fight with Franklin, but it ends after a short time when he hurts his hand, and Franklin heads back to Guy, who soon wins the bidding war. Franklin tells Guy to meet him out front, and Villard catches James in the bathroom and forces him at gunpoint to come with him. Dubray notices Franklin in the garage searching the car for the diamonds, and after firing a couple of shots at him, Franklin drives the car straight out into the street, with Dubray giving chase in a security car. After a wild chase through the city, Dubray gets caught in a multiple-car crash, enabling Franklin to get away.

Franklin finds the diamonds hidden under the dashboard, and that night, he discreetly meets his girlfriend Paula (Elise Neal) and shows her the loot. He tries to convince her to flee the country with him and they can live their whole lives off the money from the diamonds, but she refuses to do any of that and gives him the number for the police detective Pickett (Paul Gleason) so he can call him. He is dead against it, however, since he and his partner Williams (Daniel Roebuck) are actively pursuing him, so she suggests that he get James to clear all of this mess up for him. Meanwhile, Villard and his men are trying to beat the diamonds’ location out of James when James’ pager goes off, since Franklin is trying to contact him. Villard proceeds to call Franklin on James’ cellphone, demanding that he give him the diamonds or else James will die. He then tries to set up the meeting place where they will exchange the diamonds and James, but Franklin tells him that HE will decide where they meet and hangs up, then explains to Paula that, if he gets Villard on his turf, he and James might stand a chance. Moments later, Villard calls back and agrees to Franklin’s proposal, so Franklin tells him to meet him at the 50-yard line in the L.A. Memorial Coliseum at 3:00 a.m., and if James isn’t alive, then he can kiss the diamonds goodbye. Afterwards, to get more people involved so he can better his odds, he calls Carmine (Damian Chapa) – a mob boss whom he owes $25,000 to – and tells him to meet him where he is meeting Villard (but without mentioning Villard) and says he can pay him back in diamonds. He then rings up Williams and tells him to meet him at the Coliseum as well, and after he informs Pickett about it, they head on down to collar him. He then telephones Roland (Larry Hankin), a technician who works at the arena, and tells him that he needs him to work the control booth tonight, promising to owe him. Lastly, Franklin puts in a call to Aaron telling him that he needs him at the Coliseum tonight, but he just gets his answering machine.

While walking through the bleachers and readying his handgun, Franklin is suddenly confronted by Pickett and Williams and they get into a standoff, though Franklin informs them that he called them here because the real bad guy is coming here. Pickett convinces Franklin to hand over his gun, then says that he has called for backup and wants the diamonds, which confuses both Williams and Franklin because neither things were mentioned. Pickett then shoots and kills Williams with Franklin’s gun to frame him for another death, revealing that he is a dirty cop on Villard’s payroll. Villard shows up in a helicopter and shines its spotlight in Pickett’s face while demanding his diamonds, enabling Franklin to punch him unconscious and run. Villard lands the helicopter and handcuffs James to the seat, and Franklin has Roland put him on the jumbotron, where he yells to Villard to let James go and he will give him his diamonds. Moments later, Franklin gets seized by Carmine and his men and forced to take them to where he says he has hidden the diamonds (unaware that Carmine plans to kill him once he gets them). Villard’s mercenaries then arrive and spread out to locate Franklin, and they cross paths with Carmine and his crew and both sides open fire on each other. Carmine is able to escape with Franklin.

The Coliseum then turns into a war zone, during which Aaron and his bodyguard (Andre Rosey Brown) show up to help Franklin, and Carmine, his gang, Pickett, Debray, and most of Villard’s mercenaries all end up dead. While that all transpires, James notices a box of grenades in the helicopter, so he removes the pin from one of them and uses it to pick the lock on his handcuffs. He then takes that grenade and several others he unpins and jams them under one of the helicopter’s landing skids, which holds down their safety levers, so that way the chopper will be blown up if Villard tries to escape in it. He then knocks out the pilot, takes his gun, and heads after Franklin.

Villard takes down Franklin and makes ready to shoot him in the legs to force the diamonds’ location out of him, but James appears and whacks Villard in the head with his gun to knock him flat, and then he and Franklin put the boots to him before running off to where Franklin hid the stones. They get chased by the surviving mercenaries up to one of the statues, and as Franklin and James take cover behind it to protect themselves from the gunfire, Franklin decides that the diamonds aren’t worth dying for and decides to give them back to Villard. He gets the diamonds out of a light in the statue, and he shouts to the mercenaries and Villard that they surrender, so they stop shooting. Franklin tells Villard that he can have his diamonds, then tosses them all over the steps leading up to the statue. As the mercenaries are scrambling to snatch up as many as they can, scores of police officers soon show up, having been called there by Roland. Villard tries to make his escape in the helicopter, but seconds after he gets off the ground, the grenades detonate and he dies in the explosion.

The next morning, James makes a report on the whole story, regaining his job at Channel 12 News and clearing both his and Franklin’s names. He is next shown getting married to Grace, with Franklin serving as his best man, but come time for James to give Grace her ring, Franklin shows him that the ring has one of the diamonds on it (as well as his earring), and he tells him that he kept some of them. Charlie gives the ring to Grace and they wed.