The Rock

A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when soldiers threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.



Stanley Goodspeed, who lives in Washington D.C., is a biochemist who works for the FBI. Soon after his fiancée Carla Pestalozzi announces that she is pregnant, Stanley gets a call from FBI director James Womack. Womack tells Stanley that San Francisco's Alcatraz Island has been taken hostage, along with 81 tourists, by marine General Francis Xavier Hummel who, for years, has been protesting the government's refusal to pay benefits to families of war veterans who died during covert military operations. The death of his wife Barbara Hummel on March 9, 1995 drove General Hummel over the edge, and now he's holding hostages in order to get his point across. Stanley is needed because General Hummel has stolen some VX gas warheads and has announced that he will launch them onto San Francisco unless his demands are met. Stanley knows how to disarm the bombs, but Stanley needs someone who knows Alcatraz well enough to get him inside. That man is former British intelligence agent John Patrick Mason, who has been in prison for the past 30 years without a trial because he was accused of stealing the private files of J. Edgar Hoover. In 1962, John became the only inmate ever to escape from Alcatraz, and he stayed out of Alcatraz long enough to father a daughter named Jade Angelou. Despite his extreme hatred of the FBI, John agrees to help Stanley. When John and Stanley are sent into Alcatraz with a Navy SEAL team, General Hummel's men kill the entire SEAL team, leaving Stanley and John to work on their own to rescue the hostages. Written by Todd Baldridge




A group of renegade marine commandos seizes a stockpile of chemical weapons and takes over Alcatraz, with 81 tourists as hostages. Their leader, a former highly-decorated U.S. general, demands $100 million to be paid in ransom, as restitution to families of Marines who died in covert operations and were thereby denied compensation. Otherwise, he is threatening to launch 15 rockets carrying deadly VX nerve gas into the San Francisco Bay area. An elite SEAL team, with support from an FBI chemical warfare expert (Stanley Goodspeed) and a former Alcatraz escapee (John Patrick Mason), is assembled to penetrate the terrorists' defenses on Alcatraz and neutralize the rocket threat before time runs out. Written by Tad Dibbern




It's a quiet day in San Francisco. There are 81 civilians on a tour of Alcatraz, the prison famous for the fact that no prisoner had ever successfully escaped. During one of the tours, marine General Francis Xavier Hummel takes the civilians hostage, with the help of other marines. He has 15 rockets of deadly V.X. gas at his disposal, ready to launch at San Francisco. His reason for doing this is simple: he has seen Marines under his command get killed in combat without a military burial or benefits to their families. He makes a threat to the FBI: give the fallen Marines recognition or he will launch the V.X. rockets. After learning that one rocket is enough to take out sixty or seventy thousand people, the FBI sends for their top Chemical Weapons expert: Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, engaged to his pregnant girlfriend. While trying to figure out a countermeasure to the current situation, the FBI is forced to resort to John Patrick Mason, an ex-con who broke out of Alcatraz in 1962. Written by Ridley Lavine





Marine General Francis Xavier Hummel has spent most of his career carrying out covert operations, but there's no record of these operations. Over the years, nearly a hundred of his men have been killed or left behind, and they have not received any recognition. After trying to get them that through normal channels, Hummel now decides that it's time for drastic measures. He and some other marines take some rockets that are equipped with a biological weapon. They then go on a tour of Alcatraz, and take the tourists hostage. He then calls the Pentagon and informs them that unless they pay him 100 million dollars as reparation for him, he will launch the rockets. Now the Pentagon doesn't want to capitulate. So they decide to send in a team of Navy Seals. Now they need someone who knows Alcatraz and the best person they could find is John Patrick Mason, a man who escaped from Alcatraz, and who has been in every prison in the U.S. for the past 30 years. Also accompanying them is Stanley Goodspeed, an FBI chemical weapons expert. When they go in, the Marines ambush the Seals. Only Mason and Goodspeed are left, and the two have to try and neutralize the weapons. Only problem is, that Goodspeed is not really a man of action and Mason knows that when he returns, he will be sent back to prison, and Mason doesn't really deserve that. Written by rcs0411@yahoo.com





A group of U.S. marines, under command of a renegade general, take over Alcatraz and threaten San Francisco Bay with biological weapons. A chemical weapons specialist and the only man to have ever escaped from the Rock are the only ones who can prevent chaos. Written by van_whistler@hotmail.co.uk




SYNOPSIS

A group of rogue Force Recon Marines led by the heroic but disenchanted Brigadier General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris) seizes a stockpile of rockets armed with VX gas, a highly toxic chemical weapon, from a Naval Weapons Depot. They lose one of their men in the process, a horrific death caused by an accidental release of the chemical caused when one of the canisters was dropped and a sphere containing the deadly substance shatters.

Hummel and his men then seize Alcatraz Island and take 81 tourists hostage, placing them in the prison cells, then threatening the FBI and Pentagon with launching the VX rockets against the population of San Francisco, unless the government pays ransom and reparations to the families of Marines who died on illegal, clandestine Marine Force Recon missions ("Black Ops") that were commanded by General Hummel.

In an FBI lab in Washington DC, Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) is called in to inspect a package sent to Bosnian refugees. He and a trainee, Isherwood, find a small doll inside that sprays them with saren gas and contains a bomb made of C4 explosive that could destroy the lab and kill everyone in the building. As Stanley works frantically to disarm the bomb he turns down a hypodermic needle loaded with a dose of atropine. Stanley disarms the bomb successfully. At home that night, he relaxes until his girlfriend, Carla arrives home. She tells him she's pregnant - Stanley later accepts her marriage proposal. Just then, he receives a call telling him to report to San Francisco. When he arrives, Bureau Director Womack acknowledges that Goodspeed is the top scientist in the field of chemical weapons and is immediately assigned to the mission to take down Hummel. The Pentagon and FBI develop a plan to retake the island with an elite Navy SEAL team to capture the VX weapons.

In need of reliable first-hand knowledge of the physical layout of Alcatraz, FBI Director Womack (John Spencer) is forced to turn to long-time federal prisoner John Mason (Sean Connery), the only former inmate of Alcatraz to ever successfully escape. Mason isn't given the complete story about why his help is needed, so, being a proven escape artist, he escapes from the FBI and leads them on a high-speed chase through the streets of San Francisco. Because he decides to make contact with his estranged daughter, Goodspeed and the FBI catch up with him and convince him to cooperate on the mission, offering him a pardon. Mason, having been held without charges or a trial for 30 years for stealing US government secrets, is willing to cooperate, however, shortly after he signs his pardon, Womack tears it up. Goodspeed notes that while they were talking to Mason he mentioned the names of several historical figures who were wrongfully imprisoned like Sir Walter Raleigh, Archimedes and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Part of Mason's agreement includes a short stay at a luxury suite at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel. He calls in a large amount of food to distract his minders. Out on the suite's balcony, Mason, while shaking on the deal he made with Womack, slips a rope around Womack's wrist and throws him over the side, holding the rope. When Goodspeed calls the other agents to help him pull Womack to safety, Mason escapes. He steals a Humvee from a hotel patron and drives recklessly through San Francisco, colliding with cars and other obstacles to block the pursuit of him. He finally makes it to the Palace of Fine Arts and meets with his daughter, Jade. The two seems to reconcile, Jade being bitter after her mother died and Mason's abandonment. Goodspeed shows up and tells Mason they have to rejoin the FBI team.

With Mason's guidance, the SEAL team successfully infiltrates Alcatraz undetected, but as they work their way through the tunnels of Alcatraz and enter the shower room, their presence is detected by sophisticated equipment set up by Hummel's men. To the dismay of General Hummel, the SEAL team is ambushed by the marines, leaving only Mason and Goodspeed alive. With Mason deciding to leave the island, Goodspeed must reveal the true purpose of the mission. Realizing his daughter's life is at risk, Mason agrees to stay and help.

They begin the process of seeking out and disabling the rockets one-by-one, but Hummel and the marines make it very difficult for them. They disable the first rocket after a fight with two marines. Then, with Hummel threatening to execute a civilian, Mason decides to provide a diversion for Goodspeed by giving himself up. Goodspeed is able to disable the second rocket just before he is captured. Meanwhile, realizing that the SEAL team is lost, the Pentagon readies a backup plan, an attack by armed F-18s that will neutralize the poison gas by releasing thermite plasma bombs, which would also kill everyone on the island.

As Mason is fashioning a rope of bedding to make use of in effecting his and Goodspeed's escape from their cells, he tells Goodspeed why he has been a prisoner of the United States for the past 33 years. During his service for the British as an SAS agent, he stole a microfilm containing serious secrets about U.S. and other world leaders and events. The information came from the personal files of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Mason was captured and refused to divulge the location of the microfilm. He was kept locked up, without benefit of trial, and told he would not be released until he gave up the microfilm. Realizing he would be "suicided" if he ever did that, he refused.

After they escape from the cells, Mason again decides to leave the island, leaving Goodspeed to go it alone. Goodspeed is captured before he can find another rocket, but he's rescued by Mason, who decided to come back.

The deadline Hummel gave the FBI/Pentagon arrives, and when there is no ransom paid and more time requested, Hummel's officers demand he take action. Hummel orders a rocket fired. It's headed for a full stadium at Candlestick Park, but Hummel secretly enters revised coordinates on his computer keyboard and redirects the rocket so that if falls into the ocean. His men are furious. They consider themselves mercenaries working for pay, and they want their pay, or to make good on the threats. Hummel tells them that it was a bluff that the government didn't fall for, and since he's a professional soldier, not a murderer, that it's all over. He tells his men to take some hostages and leave, that he'd take the heat for it all.

The men refuse. A Mexican standoff ensues. As shots are fired, General Hummel and Major Baxter are fatally wounded. With his last breath, Hummel tells Goodspeed that the last rocket is in the lower lighthouse.

Mason and Goodspeed must fight off other marines as Goodspeed works to disable that last rocket. As Goodspeed is handling that final string of green VX "marbles", one of them drops on the deck. He retrieves it, but doesn't have time to stash it away with the rest before Captain Frye (Gregory Sporleder) is on him. With the termite plasma-armed jets approaching, Goodspeed is losing his hand-to-hand fight with Frye and must use that VX to defend himself. He shoves it in the captain's mouth and forces his jaw shut, crushing it and releasing the contents. Captain Frye dies almost instantly. The liquid also gets on Goodspeed and he immediately stumbles away and pulls the atropine antidote from his boot and injects himself in the heart with it. He is then able to grab and light off two green flares, the prearranged signal that the threat is over. The flares are spotted from land, but only after one of the jet pilots has released his bombs, exploding on the rear of the island, missing all the hostages and sending Goodspeed's flying into the sea.

Mason reappears to pull the unconscious Goodspeed to shore. Special Agent Ernest Paxton (William Forsythe) calls on the radio and learns from Goodspeed that the hostages were all alive, but that Mason had been killed. That provides Mason time to escape before the FBI arrives. Goodspeed tells Paxton and Womack that Mason was "vaporized."

The film ends with Goodspeed running from a church in Ft. Walton, Kansas, as Carla, his pregnant bride, urges him to hurry and get in the car so they can get away. Goodspeed has in his hand a cannister containing microfilm. Mason had told him where to find it. He looks at the microfilm and asks Carla if she'd like to know who really shot JFK.