David Caruso Movies
David Caruso was first seen on a national basis in a coffee commercial of the mid 1970s, in which he played a stockboy in Margaret Hamilton's general store. To pick up extra money between jobs, Caruso offered his services to the New York police department, where his punkish countenance came in handy in line-ups. This same street-smart quality enabled Caruso to win his first semi-regular TV series role in 1981, as the Irish-American gang leader "Shamrock" on Hill Street Blues. Subsequent film and TV assignments were in a similar supporting category (for example, Caruso played the panicky aviation candidate who "washes out" of training early-on in An Officer and a Gentleman [1984]). Caruso's first starring TV gig was on the short-lived 1990 cop series H.E.L.P., as officer Frank Sardoni. He continued in this Law Enforcement vein with the role of Det. John Kelly on TV's NYPD Blue (1993- ) produced by Caruso's old Hill Street Blues boss Stephen Bochco. This was Caruso's breakthrough into full stardom, and he remained with the series for a little over a season. After a highly publicized clash with the producers, David Caruso left NYPD Blue in 1995, parlaying his newfound celebrity into his first starring feature film, Kiss of Death (1995). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1966
In order to please Davy's grandfather (Ben Wright), the other Monkees create the impression that their British compatriot is a rich and successful superstar. Alas, the awful truth comes out, whereupon Grandpa insists that Davy return with him to merry old England. Comedian Charlie Callas has a cameo as an ice-cream man. Songs: "I Wanna Be Free" and "Sweet Young Thing". First telecast on October 17, 1966, "Success Story" was written by Gerry Gardner, Dee Caruso, and Bernie Orenstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
This goofy sci-fi/horror nonsense plays like '50s-style alien-invasion schlock with a dollop of '80s-style blood and gore. The invasion -- such as it is -- is perpetrated on various backwoods hunters and campers by a scarcely-seen alien that looks like a menacing Star Trek guest star in a glam-rock outfit. The alien's rather simple frontal attack employs an arsenal of toothy, pulsating frisbees that glow in the dark and glom onto the necks and backs of various flannel-clad denizens of the woods. That's about it... oh, and there's a few reliable character actors on hand to spout silly dialogue. Jack Palance plays a crusty hunter who fancies the alien stuffed and mounted, not caring that it plans to do the same to him (now there's a trophy); Martin Landau turns in an eye-rolling performance as the local lunatic, whose paranoid ravings presage those of his character in the feature film The X-Files. Also known as It Came Without Warning. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Palance, Martin Landau, (more)
When the drug craze of the '60s invades the straight-laced world of a military academy, a group of young cadets turn the school upside down. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1981
In this socially conscious drama, set in 1955, three tough New York youths must learn to deal with a troubled world. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
First Blood is the Sylvester Stallone film that unleashed "Rambo" onto an unsuspecting world. Wandering into a small, hostile town, ex-Green Beret John Rambo (Stallone) is targeted for persecution and abuse by potbellied Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). When he can stand no more, Rambo goes bonkers, killing a deputy and heading into the surrounding hills, armed to the teeth. Only after Rambo has picked off practically every law enforcement officer within a radius of 50 miles do the local authorities bring in his former commanding officer, Trautman (Richard Crenna), for advice. Trautman's response -- that the locals had better get a lot of body bags ready -- is hardly encouraging. First Blood proved to be one of Stallone's biggest non-Rocky hits. Kirk Douglas had originally been cast as Trautman, but he quit the project when the producers refused to cave in to his demand that Trautman kill Rambo in the finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, (more)
Richard Gere plays Zack Mayo, an aloof, taciturn man who aspires to be a navy pilot. Once he's arrived at training camp for his 13-week officer's course, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett Jr.). Mayo --or "Mayonnaise," as he is dubbed by the irascible Foley -- is an excellent cadet, but a little cold around the heart. Foley rides Mayo mercilessly, sensing that the young man would be prime officer material if he weren't so self-involved. Zack's affair with working girl Paula Pokrifi (Debra Winger) is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself. Only after Mayo's best friend Sid Worsley (David Keith) commits suicide over an unhappy romance does Zack come out of his shell and mature into a real human being. Take away the R-rated dialogue and the sex scenes, and Officer and a Gentleman could have been a 1937 MGM flick, maybe with Robert Taylor as Zack, Wallace Beery as Foley, and Jimmy Stewart as Sid. An Officer and a Gentleman was nominated for 7 Oscars, with wins to Gossett and to the hit song "Up Where We Belong." The closing scene has surely become a classic of movie romance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Debra Winger, (more)
After her home is burglarized, a married woman finds that the diary containing her sexual fantasies has been stolen. She doesn't put two and two together when an attractive man suddenly enters her life and becomes the man of her dreams. The thief's secret info works for awhile, and the woman is tricked into becoming a part of his sexual game-playing, but after quite a bit of drama, she and hubby are back in each others arms. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven Bauer, Barbara Williams, (more)
- 1984
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Five Emmy nominations went to the two-part TV drama The First Olympics: Athens 1896. The story begins in 1894, when Baron Pierre de Courbetin (Louis Jourdan) announces his intention to stage the first Olympic games of the Modern Era within two years in Athens. The baron heads to the US to recruit an athletic team. Despite disinterest, opposition and spotty funding, de Courbetin assembles his team with the help of Princeton professor William Sloane. The thirteen chosen Americans have a pretty bumpy time of it, but most survive to the final Olympic contest: the grueling Marathon. The supporting cast is top-heavy with veterans from both America and England, including Angela Lansbury, Honor Blackman, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. Among the leading players is future NYPD Blue star David Caruso as Irish-American athlete James Connolly. Originally running five hours, The First Olympics was first telecast May 20 and 21, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
When prodigal son Billy Turner (Judd Nelson) returns to his Florida home town, he's caught in a brawl and thrown in jail. He tells the guards to call his father, the mayor, who will have him released; however, he soon discovers his father has been killed. After Turner finally gets out of jail, he starts to hunt down his father's murderer, with the eventual help of Annie Rayford (Ally Sheedy) and her brother Joey (David Caruso). Their nemesis is the nasty crime boss Perry Kerch (Scott Wilson) and his henchmen, though the slow-witted police chief (Paul Winfield) is not much help, either. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, (more)
- 1986
First telecast September 18, 1986, Crime Story was the two-part pilot for the subsequent series which traced the longstanding relationship between Chicago cop Lt. Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) and mobster Ray Luca (Anthony Dennison). As head of the major crime unit, Torello is not above circumventing the rules to bring Luca's minions to justice. In the pilot, Luca deliberately provokes the lieutenant by hiring the son of one of Torello's close friends to pull off a series of robberies. The level of realism is heightened by the fact that star Dennis Farina is in fact a former Chicago police officer, while John Santucci, playing one of Luca's henchman, had once been a genuine criminal. Crime Story was created by Miami Vice mentor Michael Mann. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
This made-for-cable thriller stars Powers Boothe as a former policeman whose son (C. Thomas Howell) has fallen prey to a band of white supremacists. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
Director Abel Ferrara liberally employs his blackjack intensity in this lunatic gang romance that comes across as a cross between Mean Streets and West Side Story. The New York City street gangs of Chinatown and Little Italy are rattling their sabers and they become drawn when a Chinese restaurant opens up on the Italian side of Canal Street. In the middle of all this tension and violence, beautiful Chinese teenager Tyan-Hwa (Sari Chang) falls in love with Tony (Richard Panebianco), a pizza delivery boy. Of course, continuing with in the West Side Story vein, the parents of the two lovebirds are against the match. Not only that, but the Mafia and the Chinese mob conspire to separate the lovers in order to maintain an uncertain peace in the community. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Russo, Sari Chang, (more)
The central "gimmick" of the comedy-adventure Twins is established early on. Unbeknownst to one another, king-sized Arnold Schwarzenegger and gnomeish Danny De Vito are twin brothers. Even better: Schwarzenegger is a mild-mannered, bookish type, while De Vito is a vitriolic troublemaker. The film takes satiric jabs at the notion of "perfect" genetics, and makes several pointed comments concerning the dangers of youthful pre-conditioning by insensitive parents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, (more)
- 1990
In this made-for-cable adaptation of Roderick Thorp's crime thriller, Peter Weller stars as a Hollywood cop whose murder investigation runs into a wall of police corruption. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Weller, Sela Ward, (more)
The gritty underbelly of New York's complex, ethnically divided criminal world is exposed in this dark drama from director Abel Ferrara. Christopher Walken stars as Frank White, a drug lord who's just been released from a long stint in prison. Aware that feeding off of society's depravity has made him a wealthy man, Frank has become determined to give something back to the city, and he hatches a scheme to build a multimillion-dollar public hospital in one of Brooklyn's worst ghetto neighborhoods. Needing the assistance of his fellow criminals to pull it off, Frank and his adjutant Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne) encounter a wall of resistance from every faction, including drug-trade partner Lance Wong (Joey Chin) and temperamental cop Dennis Gilley (David Caruso). Frank's do-gooder efforts ultimately result in a Mob war and in a bloody showdown between the city's various ethnic criminal actions. Ferrara followed King of New York with a similarly themed film that many critics considered his masterpiece, Bad Lieutenant (1992). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Walken, David Caruso, (more)
- 1990
Most TV movie reference books have given up mentioning the hundreds of unsold pilots that dot the video landscape. Parker Kane, originally telecast in 1990 and then rerun in 1992, is one of those orphans that has fallen through the research cracks. It's possible the film is due for a revival thanks to the present-day popularity of its star Jeff Fahey. Fahey plays Parker Kane, a cop turned private eye. Always a maverick, albeit an honest one, Kane supersedes the authority of his p.i. license when a close friend is murdered. The trail of clues leads to a major-scale scam involving the dumping of toxic waste. Guest star Patti LaBelle plays a nightclub singer during the less hectic moments of Parker Kane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Michael Lehmann directed this post-modernist hash of To Catch a Thief and The Naked Gun starring Bruce Willis as Hudson Hawk, a cat burglar who wants to go straight, but the circumstances won't allow it. The story begins in a pre-credit sequence that takes place in the renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci (Stefano Molinari) is rushing through his Mona Lisa painting to work on his latest invention -- a machine to turn lead into bronze. But Da Vinci makes a mistake and, instead of bronze, the machine turns the lead into gold. Realizing the danger of his invention if the contraption gets into the wrong hands, he hides three parts of the apparatus inside three of his other works. Four hundred years later, Hudson Hawk, the world's greatest cat burglar, is being released from jail after pulling a ten-year stretch. He wants to retire from the profession of cat burglary and drink some cappuccino, but two screwball billionaires -- Darwin and Minerva Mayflower (Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard) -- won't let him. Their nefarious plot is to steal the three Da Vinci works, restore Da Vinci's gold-making machine, and destroy the world's monetary system. They blackmail Hawks into working with them to steal the Da Vincis by threatening the life of Hawks's pal Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello). Along with the power-mad billionaires, Hawks has to deal with the CIA, in the person of George Kaplan (James Coburn), breathing down his neck. He also has Vatican art restorer Anna Baragli (Andie MacDowell) falling for his smirk. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, (more)
When a top secret naval mission leads to the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at the end of WWII, it began one of the most scandalous court-martials in the history of the military. For five days the surviving crew members were left in the shark-infested waters, with only half of them surviving to be rescued. Their well-respected Captain accepted the responsibility to keep the scandal to a minimum but his court-martial only served to show that justice is not always found in military proceedings but rather mere expediency. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
John McNaughton directed this Richard Price-scripted comedy about a cop who learns to love an unwanted gift from a gangster. Robert De Niro plays Wayne Dobie, a shy and reclusive Chicago cop who has never fired a gun. Dobie is an evidence technician who takes photographs at crime scenes, earning the moniker of "Mad Dog" for his diffident attitude. One day Dobie walks in on a convenience store holdup and saves the life of Chicago mob boss Frank Milo (Bill Murray). Frank is impressed by the way Dobie handled the holdup and wants to pay him back for saving his life. In thrall to Frank is Glory (Uma Thurman), who is working off her brother's gambling debts by living with the mobster. One day, Glory turns up at Dobie's house, explaining that Frank is giving her to him for one week as a gift. Initially Dobie wants nothing to do with Glory, but as the week goes on, he realizes he is becoming intensely attracted to her. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, (more)
NYPD Blue seemed destined to end before it began, with leading character Det. Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) being gunned down in the very first episode. Andy would recover, but the person responsible for his wounds, mob boss Alfornse Giardella (Robert Costanzo), would prove to be the catalyst of many of the series' initial plot lines and subplots. Attorney Laura Michaels (Sherry Stringfield), ex-wife of Andy's partner, Det. John Kelly (David Caruso), turned out to be the sole eyewitness when Giardella was himself slain by his enemies. And, rather than do the bidding of Giardella crony Angelo Marino (Joe Santos), uniformed officer Janice Licalsi (Amy Brenneman), who had been forced into collusion with the Mob because of her on-the-take policeman father, cold-bloodedly murdered Marino -- a fact that would lead to grief and professional disgrace for Janice's erstwhile lover John Kelly. Other first-season NYPD Blue developments: The contentious Sipowicz almost begrudgingly entered into a romance with Assistant DA Sylvia Costas (Sharon Lawrence), who like Andy, had a serious problem with booze; the drug-addicted brother of Det. James Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) died of a drug overdose; precinct skipper Arthur Fancy (James McDaniel) had problems at home due to a custody battle over a foster child and Mrs. Fancy's difficult pregnancy; and unhappily married Det. Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) began an affair with sexy new administrative assistant Donna Abandando (Gail O'Grady). (Clapp and O'Grady were merely recurring characters this season, but would graduate to full "regular" status for season two). NYPD Blue closed out the 1993-1994 season by winning five Emmy awards, for best lead actor (Dennis Franz), best writer (Ann Biderman), best director (Daniel Sackheim), best art direction (Paul Eads, Mary Ann Biddle) and best casting (Junie Lowry-Johnson, Alexa L. Fogel). The series also endured the first of many cast defections, when Sherry Stringfield relinquished the role of Laura Michaels in order to accept a job on the new medical drama series ER. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1993
This fact-based made-for-television drama chronicles a 17-year-long police investigation of John List, a New Jersey accountant who became a mass murderer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Beverly D'Angelo, (more)
- 1994
Lt. Fancy (James McDaniel) discreetly advises the divorce-bound Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) to keep his romantic involvement with Donna (Gail O'Grady) under wraps -- at least in public. An abused woman whom Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) tried to help ends up dead. Kelly (David Caruso) and an Asian-American detective (Tzi Ma) investigate the murder of an off-duty cop in Chinatown. And Detective Adrianne Lesniak (Justine Miceli, in her first series appearance), on the rebound from a sour relationship with another cop, is transferred to the 15th. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) comes to the rescue when a fellow cop dies -- and not in the line of duty -- in the apartment of Andy's prostitute friend Lois (Shannon Cochran). Lesniak (Justine Miceli) is harassed on the job by her former boyfriend -- also a cop. And in the midst of investigating the death of a baby in a drive-by, Kelly (David Caruso) is called on the carpet by the IAB's Cmdr. Haverill (James Handy) for past dereliction of duty. This highly rated episode represents the final NYPD Blue appearance of David Caruso. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
NYPD Blue begins its second season with 15th Precinct police officer Janice Licalsi (Amy Brenneman) on trial for the killing of mob functionary Marino. Despite having suppressed evidence that would have incriminated Janice, Detective John Kelly (David Caruso) testifies on her behalf -- and outside chambers, Kelly tells Robin Wirkus (Debrah Farentino) of his innermost feelings. Elsewhere, the squad investigates a series of robberies targeting drug dealers, and Andy Sipowicz, (Dennis Franz), busy on a case involving a battered wife, must agree to signing a contract with his AA sponsor, Dan Breen (Peter Boyle), before renewing his romance with another recovering alcoholic. With this episode, Gail O'Grady (Donna Abandando), Gordon Clapp (Greg Medavoy), and Sharon Lawrence (Sylvia Costas) graduate from recurring-characters to full "series regular" status. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
