Late for Dinner

Late for Dinner is a 1991 American film directed by W. D. Richter and starring Peter Berg, Brian Wimmer and Marcia Gay Harden. The supporting cast features Peter Gallagher and Richard Steinmetz, along with Janeane Garofalo's first movie appearance, briefly playing a cashier during a comical sequence in a burger joint.

Two men on the run from police are cryogenically frozen for 30 years.

In 1962, best friends and brothers-in-law, Willie Husband (Brian Wimmer) and simple-minded Frank Lovegren (Peter Berg), are running from the police because Willie shot and killed a man. It was self-defense, but a witness intends to frame them both for kidnapping and murder.

Frank explains what happened: Willie; his wife, Joy (Marcia Gay Harden); and little daughter, Jess (Cassy Friel); live a happy life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Joy's brother, Frank, lives with them. Willie lost his job at the milk company, and they have fallen behind in house payments. They learn the bank intends to foreclose, so Willie pays a visit to the banker, Bob Freeman (Peter Gallagher), to show that he made up the back payments with funds borrowed from relatives. Freeman takes Willie's receipt and burns it, then offers to buy his house for less than it's worth. He is building a huge, new home development in the area, and he needs all the land in Willie's neighborhood to do it. Willie refuses to undersell or to bow to pressure, and destroys an expensive chair and rug before storming out of the office. That's the last straw for Freeman, and he vows revenge.

On the drive home, Willie discovers Frank "borrowed" Freeman's little boy, Donald (Ross Malinger), because Frank realized the boy was being emotionally abused by his father. He pleads to Willie to let him keep Donald, as he is small and won't eat much. When they get home, Joy convinces Willie they have to accept the lowball offer and just get out while they can. Willie calls Freeman to tell him that he will accept his offer after all, and that, by the way, his son had somehow "wedged himself into the back seat" of his car. Realizing this is his chance to get what he wants, Freeman accuses Willie of kidnapping. They agree to meet in the desert just outside town, Willie believing it is only to return the boy and to get the $9,000 Freeman offered for his house.