Nigel Gibbs Movies

As the fourth-season finale of The Shield begins, everyone at The Barn is angry that Antwon (Anthony Anderson) got a deal from the DEA and is not going to be charged for the murder of two cops. Monica (Glenn Close) suggests to Vic (Michael Chiklis) and Shane (Walton Goggins) that they find a way to undermine the deal. Vic learns that Aceveda (Benito Martinez) visited both Juan Lozano and Antwon in prison, shortly before Juan was murdered. Suspecting that Aceveda might have had something to do with Juan's death, Vic confronts him, suggesting he find a connection between Juan and Antwon, because if Antwon murdered Juan after cutting the deal with the DEA, he could lose his immunity. Monica learns that Antwon is giving the DEA information about Bonilla (Al Cruz), a Salvadoran drug kingpin, so the team decides to try to bust him first, targeting gang leader Gusano (Pete Vasquez) to get information about him. Dutch (Jay Karnes) and Claudette (CCH Pounder) investigate a murder at a quinceañera. When the trail leads them back to the Walker foster home, an irate Monica makes several crucial decisions about the case that could jeopardize her captaincy. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Corrine (Cathy Cahlin Ryan) is attacked at the hospital by an Asian man (Xuyen Tu Valdivia) she's trying to patch up. Vic (Michael Chiklis) argues with Owen (Vincent Angell) over whether or not she should go to the station and file a report. Vic plans to hunt down the perp regardless. Called away on other police business, he asks Julien (Michael Jace) to alert him when they catch the guy. Vic learns that the feds have traced some of the marked bills from the "Money Train" job to a bank in Indio. A talented young black graffiti artist is found lynched, and despite the fact that the victim had no gang affiliation, gang involvement is suspected. When a local Hispanic priest affiliated with Los Profetas is stabbed to death soon afterward, with the signature of the One-Niners, Aceveda (Benito Martinez) fears, rightly, that a gang war could erupt at any moment, and puts all of his available manpower on the case. Claudette (CCH Pounder) comes into conflict with Waylon (Gareth Williams) again over an assignment, and Vic continues to play both sides against the middle, offering to help Waylon get his Decoy Squad transferred out of the division, while appearing to support Claudette. When Vic puts his trust in the wrong gang leader, he tells Aceveda that it's because he's no longer in touch with the streets, and he needs to have the Strike Team turned loose again. Aceveda finally tells Aurora (Camilia Sanes) that he was sexually assaulted, and she is not as understanding as one might hope. This episode marked the directorial debut of star Michael Chiklis. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A cop's personal code of justice begins to change after a number of incidents lead his city to a tragic wave of violence in this police drama. Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) is a veteran cop with the LAPD's Special Investigations unit, a man who isn't above bending the law if it means putting people behind bars who deserve the treatment. As Los Angeles waits on the verdict in the Rodney King police beating trial, Perry is presenting testimony to Assistant Chief of Police Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames), who is well aware of the corruption in the SIS unit and wants to stop it. Perry, however, twists some facts as he speaks in the defense of his new partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), who is being investigated for inappropriate use of deadly force. For lack of honest testimony, Keough is let off the hook, and soon he and Perry have a new case to investigate -- a robbery at a liquor store than turned into a quadruple homicide. Perry and Keough quickly track down two likely suspects, Orchard (Kurupt) and Sidwell (Dash Mihok), but Perry is surprised when the head of SIS, Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), tells him to let Orchard and Sidwell go, and instead points the finger at two ex-cons who should be taken off the street, even though they're innocent of this crime. Perry follows Van Meter's orders, despite Keough's misgivings, but in the wake of the L.A. riots, Perry has a change of heart, and decides to start working with Holland against Van Meter's corrupt methods. In the midst of it all, Perry is trying to hold together his troubled marriage to Sally (Lolita Davidovich), while Keough finds himself romancing a fellow officer, Beth (Michael Michele). Dark Blue was adapted from an original screenplay by noted crime novelist James Ellroy; originally set against the backdrop of the 1965 Watts riots, the story was later updated to 1992. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

First-year med student Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) stumbles and bumbles her way through her first emergency-room rotation at Chicago's County General as ER launches it fifth season. Getting off to a bad start by clumsily trying to help a bleeding man on the street before her shift even begins, Lucy can't seem to do anything right at all. She manages to alienate her supervisor, the newly bearded Carter (Noah Wyle), stumbles into a clandestine romantic rendezvous, blurts out the fact that a patient is terminal to the patient's nonplussed wife, and is equally undiplomatic with a woman who may have suffered her third miscarriage. And there's still several hours of her shift to go. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this updated and gender-reversed variation on Cyrano de Bergerac, Janeane Garofalo stars as Abby, the host of a radio talk show for people who have problems with pets. One day, she gets a call from Brian (Ben Chaplin) who is having trouble with his Great Dane (who enjoys roller skating). After a few minutes on the phone, Brian is immediately taken with Abby, and she's certainly interested in him. However, while Abby is not unattractive, she's terribly self-conscious about her appearance. When he asks her for a description, instead of telling him she's a diminutive brunette with big brown eyes, she describes her neighbor Noelle (Uma Thurman), a tall, rail-thin, blue eyed blonde. When Ben sets up a date, Abby is frantic and convinces Noelle to take her place. However, while Abby sounds smart, witty and charming over the radio (or the telephone), Noelle speaks like -- well, I think the phrase dumb blonde is called for here. Brian becomes puzzled -- why is it Abby is so great on the phone but so inarticulate in person? And what's the story with her friend, the cute brunette who sounds so smart? Noelle is even more confused; she wants to help her friend, but she's finding herself falling for Brian as well. The Truth About Cats and Dogs gave Ben Chaplin his first role in an American film and Janeane Garofalo's first starring turn after several notable supporting performances. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-cable thriller an unemployed actor makes a little cash running acting classes. His troubles begin when the student he has been sleeping with calls him one day and says that she has been kidnapped. The next thing he knows, he is being framed for embezzlement and murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In Judgment Night, an action-packed thriller directed by Stephen Hopkins, a group of young middle-class men Emilio Estevez Cuba Gooding Jr. Jeremy Piven and Stephen Dorff on a night out with the boys take a disastrous wrong turn that leads to a run-in with a vicious street gang led by Fallon (Denis Leary). A cold, vicious and frightening criminal, Fallon and his band of thugs threaten to permanently silence the foursome after they witness a murder. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Gina's boyfriend Dion (Edafe Blackmon), better known as rap artist "I'm Down", hires Ron (Darryl M. Bell) to promote his upcoming concert. At the same time, Freddie (Cree Summer) becomes painfully aware that Dion has been physically abusing Gina (Ajai Sanders). Ultimately, the entire campus finds out about Dion's wretched behavior, leading Ron to take drastic action. This is one of several "message" episodes which popped up sporadically on A Different World, proving that even after five seasons, producer Bill Cosby was still very much the series' guiding force. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) and her boyfriend, Judge Michael Hayworth (John Beck), are held captive by the brother (Harold Sylvester) of a convict who killed himself in prison. Their captor is convinced that the Judge, who refused to consider new evidence in his brother's case, is responsible for the tragedy. As Hunter races against time to free his partner, information comes to light suggesting that Hayworth may have had a hidden agenda during the dead man's trial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this youthful drama, Tom, a 14- year-old who's parents have just divorced, is abruptly uprooted from his wealthy Chicago home and sent to the strange land of LA to live in the far-out beach bungalow of his aunt, an aging hippie still stuck in a by-gone era. He is unhappy with the new arrangement and finds his new bohemian lifestyle strange and the activities of his new peers, stupid. His life begins to change a bit when he befriends a young surfer named Fin. At first he thinks of the fun-loving Fin as a real dolt, but later he admits he was wrong. Like the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn characters on which they are loosely based, the two new friends soon find themselves having a series of adventures, some of them dangerous; by the summer's end, Tom finds himself wiser, accustomed to California, and a lot more grown up. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Deceptions, a made-for-cable below-average erotic thriller, tells the familiar story of a homicide cop who falls for a beautiful suspect. When wealthy socialite Adrienne (Nicollette Sheridan) kills her husband Douglas (Marshall Colt), she claims self-defense. Nick Gentry (Harry Hamlin), the cop assigned to the case is suspicious but becomes obsessed with the sensual young woman. There is little new here and director Ruben Preuss spends little time with plot or character development, depending on the audience's interest in the extremely attractive cast, including Hamlin and Sheridan who were married at the time. Both Hamlin and Sheridan give stilted, wooden performances and surprisingly generate very little heat in their love scenes. Deceptions is a remarkably predictable, non-erotic thriller with little to recommend it. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide