The Rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner. The film stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, with William Forsythe and Michael Biehn co-starring. In the film, the Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS captain with a team of SEALs to break into Alcatraz, where a rogue general and a rogue group of Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the U.S. government pays $100 million to the next-of-kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied. The Rock was dedicated to the memory of co-producer Don Simpson, who died five months before its release. The film received positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for Best Sound at the 69th Academy Awards. It was also a financial success, earning box-office receipts of over $335 million against a production budget of $75 million, and became the fourth highest-grossing film of 1996. Plot Disillusioned Brigadier General Francis Hummel and his second-in-command Major Tom Baxter lead a rogue group of U.S. Force Recon Marines against a heavily guarded naval weapons depot to steal a stockpile of 16 VX gas-loaded M55 rockets, ultimately losing one of their men in the process. The next day, along with newly recruited Captains Frye and Darrow, Hummel and his men seize control of Alcatraz Island, taking 81 tourists hostage. Hummel threatens to launch the rockets against San Francisco unless the U.S. government pays him $100 million from a military slush fund, which he will distribute to his men and the families of Recon Marines who died on covert missions under his command, but whose deaths were not compensated. The Department of Defense and FBI develop a plan to retake the island using a U.S. Navy SEAL team led by Commander Anderson, the FBI's top chemical weapons specialist, Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, and the only inmate ever to escape Alcatraz: John Mason. FBI Director James Womack bribes Mason with a pardon (which Womack subsequently destroys), and Mason is set up in a hotel. He escapes, resulting in a car chase with Goodspeed through the streets of San Francisco as Mason seeks out his estranged