Charlie’s Angels is a 2000 American action–comedy film, co-produced by Columbia Pictures, Global Entertainment Productions, Tall Tree Productions and Drew Barrymore’s Flower Films and directed by McG. Based on the same-titled television series from the late 1970s, it was adapted by screenwriters Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon and John August and stars Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu as three women working for a private investigation agency.
The film is a loose sequel of the original series. John Forsythe from the original series returned as Charlie’s off-screen voice. Charlie’s Angels was followed with the 2003 sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Plot
Dylan, Natalie, and Alex are three talented woman currently at the employ of the unseen “Charlie”, who gives them cases to investigate via a speaker in his offices, and backing them with support for disguises and equipment; Charlie is assisted by Bosley who helps the woman directly when needed. They are assigned the case of the kidnapping of Eric Knox, a programmer and head of Knox Enterprises, supposedly by a company called Redstar for his voice tracking and identification system. The three woman infiltrate a party held by Redstar’s owner, Roger Corwin, and spot a thin man that was seen on the surveillance videos during Knox’ kidnapping. They give chase, and eventually corner and fight the thin man, but he runs off; when the woman follow, they discover Knox.
After reuniting Knox with his partner Vivian Wood, Knox implores them to help understand what Redstar would do with his software. The three manage to infiltrate Redstar’s secure computer system and plant a device to allow them to explore the Redstar mainframe at their leisure. They leave the laptop with Bosley and consider the mission successful. The group relaxes for the night, with Dylan taking up an offer to spend the night with Knox. However, Dylan discovers that Knox had planned the events all along with help from the thin man and Vivian; by gaining access to Redstar’s server, he is able to seek out the location of any voice that can be detected on it. Knox shoots Dylan, believing to have killed her, though Dylan is able to escape unharmed. When she regroups with Natalie and Alex, she finds they have also been attacked but each escaped, that Corwin has been murdered, and that’s Charlie’s offices have been blown up. They learn from a radio transmitter implanted in Bosley’s teeth that he is unharmed, captured by Vivian before the explosion, and are able to use information to target his whereabouts.
The woman, with help from Dylan’s current boyfriend “The Chad”, are able to approach the abandoned lighthouse that Knox is holding Bosley in. They discover that Knox is planning on using the software and the Redstar server to physically locate Charlie when he next attempts to contact Bosley, as he believes Charlie was responsible for his father’s death in the Vietnam War. While they are able to defeat Vivian and the thin man and rescue Bosley before Knox blows up the lighthouse, they are too late to stop him taking off in a helicopter armed with a missile to home in on Charlie’s location. The woman manage to board the chopper and reprogram the missile, sending it back to blow up Knox and the helicopter while they land safely in the ocean. Seeing the opportunity to finally meet their benefactor, the woman enter the house Knox has targetted to find Charlie has already left, though remotely congratulates them on a job well done. The woman and Bosley are treated by Charlie to a vacation getaway, where Charlie, unseen by the group, checks up on his Angels.
