Main Cast: Danny Aiello, Greg Cruttwell, Jeff Daniels, James Spader, Teri Hatcher, Glenne Headly, Charlize Theron
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A variety of crooks, losers, and working stiffs living in the shadow of Hollywood find their various personal crises overlapping in this intricately woven melodrama. Lee Woods (James Spader) is a cold-blooded hit man and Dosmo Pizzo (Danny Aiello) a soft-at-heart gangster; they've been sent to murder Roy Foxx (Peter Horton), the former husband of also-ran Olympic skier Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher). Lee's girlfriend Helga (Charlize Theron) is unhappy about his habit of killing people, and she attracts the attention of Alvin (Jeff Daniels) and Wes (Eric Stoltz), two cops who've been put on vice detail but don't have the heart to bust the prostitute they've been trailing. Alvin dreams of becoming a homicide detective, so when he discovers that he might be on the trail of a murder, it's like Santa Claus showed up in mid-July to hand him a present. Dosmo manages to escape the crime scene, only to foil a murder attempt by Lee, forcing him to hide out in the home of Hopper, a pretentious English art dealer (Greg Cruttwell), whom Dosmo holds hostage along with Hopper's long-suffering assistant, Susan (Glenne Headly). In the midst of all this, a down-on-his-luck television director (Paul Mazursky) contemplates suicide (the main stumbling block is finding someone to take care of his dog) while also being pestered by an actor with equally bad luck (Austin Pendleton) and meeting a compassionate nurse (Marsha Mason) on a visit to a cemetery. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Kevin Constant - Art Director, Terry Miller - Associate Producer, David Gaines - Associate Producer, Mindy Marin - Associate Producer, Mindy Marin - Casting, John Papsidera - Casting, Jim Burke - Co-producer, Betsy Faith Heimann - Costume Designer, Terry Miller - First Assistant Director, John Herzfeld - Director, Wayne Wahrman - Editor, Jim Miller - Editor, Keith Samples - Executive Producer, Tony Amatullo - Executive Producer, Anthony Marinelli - Composer (Music Score), Anthony Marinelli - Songwriter, Catherine Hardwicke - Production Designer, Oliver Wood - Cinematographer, Herb Nanas - Producer, Jeff Wald - Producer, Gene Serdena - Set Designer, Gary Sawaya - Set Designer, Kim Ornitz - Sound/Sound Designer, Chuck Picerni, Jr. - Stunts, Charlie Picerni - Stunts Coordinator, John Herzfeld - Screenwriter, Richard L. Anderson - Supervising Sound Editor
2 Days in the Valley is a 1996 film, directed by John Herzfeld. The film revolves around the events over 48 hours in the lives of a group of people who are drawn together by a murder. Several parallel storylines overlap one another in the film.
Plot
The introductory storyline involves hitmen Lee Woods and Dosmo Pizzo. The two kill Roy Foxx while he lies in bed after they inject Roy's ex-wife, Becky, with a tranquilizer. The day afterward, Woods turns on Pizzo, shooting him and blowing up their car in order to set him up as the fall guy. Woods flees the scene with his Norwegian girlfriend Helga.
Dosmo survives, seeking shelter at the house of Allan Hopper, an arrogant art dealer who suffers from kidney stones. He takes Hopper and his meek assistant, Susan Parish, hostage. He is completely unaware of the fact that Hopper has called his older sister, Audrey, over to the house for medical help. On the way over to her brother's house, Audrey, a nurse, picks up Teddy Peppers, a down and out TV producer contemplating suicide.
Meanwhile, Becky awakens in horror when she discovers Roy's body in bed beside her. She runs from her house and flags down two vice detectives who happen to be driving through. Although he initially feels sympathetic, Wes Taylor begins to feel suspicious, wondering if Becky knows more than she is telling. Later it is revealed that Becky hired Lee and Dosmo to kill Roy for $30,000. Becky, who was unaware that Lee planned to kill Roy in her own house, stashed the payment in her house. The divergent paths of the characters cross, with deadly consequences, after Lee decides to go back to the house to get the money.
