Ronny Cox Movies

The controversial satire The LA Riot Spectacular plays for mordent laughs the events that consumed L.A. in 1992, after the police officers on trial for beating motorist Rodney King were found innocent. The city was engulfed by a massive riot, but the film plays these moments for laughs. In addition to recreating some of the images seen on television, the film skewers a variety of figures including the police, the media, and the citizens of the city. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A psychiatrist confronts a new client whose problems may not be all in his head in this drama. Dr. Ty Adams (Michael Beach) is a well-known psychiatrist who has earned no small amount of controversy for his blunt and "anti-medicinal" approach to treatment. Adams is also dealing with some emotional problems of his own after the death of his wife and child. Parker (John C. McGinley), a documentary filmmaker, has arrived at the hospital where Adams works to make a movie about his work, just in time for Adams to start working with a new patient -- a mysterious and angry fellow known only as "The Man" -- who insists he is Satan (Eriq LaSalle). The new patient is not easily convinced that he's delusional, and as he becomes a greater disruptive force, Adams can't help but wonder if maybe the stranger is telling the truth. Crazy as Hell was directed by actor Eriq LaSalle, who plays the new patient and is best known for his work on the television series E.R.; it was his first theatrical feature, after helming the made-for-cable Rebound. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This episode takes place a decade into the future: The SG-1 team has been de-activated by the new President, the Goa'uld has been defeated, and all earthly diseases have been eradicated. This has come about thanks to the advanced technology of the Aschen, a seemingly benign alien race. But when the now-married Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) is given false information about her inability to bear children, it becomes obvious that the Aschen pose a sinister threat. The former SG-1 team members must send a message to their younger selves in the year 2000 to preserve the future of Mankind. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This loosely fact-based oater attempts to mimic the youthful heartthrobs in Western garb formula of Young Guns (1988), as well as the cheeky humor and some plot elements of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Colin Farrell stars as Jesse James, who returns home from the Civil War to his small hometown to find that a crooked railroad baron (Harris Yulin) has been illegally forcing the residents from the homesteads to make way for a new rail line. Enraged, James leads a band of outlaws including his brother Frank (Gabriel Macht), Cole Younger (Scott Caan), and Younger's brothers Bob (Will McCormack) and Jim (Gregory Smith) on a criminal spree of bank robbing. Although their Robin Hood-style tactics soon make them local heroes, the James-Younger gang members find themselves pursued by the dogged Allan Pinkerton (Timothy Dalton), the world's first "private eye." Along the way, Jesse also finds romance with Zee Mimms (Ali Larter), the daughter of a local doctor (Ronny Cox). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Based on Jack Curtis' novel Christmas in Calico, this sentimental TV movie is set in Oregon in the early 1900s. Reba McEntire (who also produced) stars as widowed farmer Rose Cameron, who struggles to save her home from foreclosure, and to make enough money to pay for the medicine necessary to keep her sickly son Toby (Devon Alan). Nor is Rose the only person in town weighed down by problems: a well-organized gang, clearly bankrolled by someone with a lot of political pull, has been systematically stealing cattle, threatening to bankrupt everyone in the community. Enter a mysterious man on horseback named Harry Withers (Thomas Ian Griffith), an ex-outlaw determined to atone for his past by performing random acts of goodwill throughout the west. As Withers grows closer to Rose, she begins to suspect that he is actually someone else, someone far more famous than whom he claims to be (Hint: He's been living in South America for several years, and raindrops kept fallin' on his head). In the hearty spirit of brotherhood and political correctness, the beleaguered townsfolk join forces with a group of Chinese immigrants to help Withers vanquish the villains -- and, it is intimated, to reform Villain Number One. The Secret of Giving was initially telecast by CBS on November 25, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"What if they're right?" screamed the ad copy for the TV movie Y2K, referring to the millions of otherwise rational, level-headed people who lived in mortal terror that virtually every computer in the world would malfunction on December 31, 1999, because of an imbedded inability to "read" the year 2000. As it turned out, of course, "they" were wrong, and no worldwide technical meltdown occurred: but the producers of this film, which originally aired November 21, 1999, on NBC, were clearly not above exploiting everyone's panic over things to come to make a few bucks. In traditional disaster-flick fashion, the film offers a multitude of subplots with several different sets of main characters, all of whose lives will be profoundly altered by the cataclysmic events of Y2K. Likewise adhering to tradition is the notion that only one man is capable of saving the world from plunging into a computerized abyss. That man is MIT-trained "systems failure" expert Nick Cromwell (Ken Olin), who on the eve of the new millennium races against time to prevent a nuclear disaster in New York City -- one that threatens to dwarf a similar reactor meltdown that occurred a scant few hours earlier in Sweden. To juice up the suspense, the script contrives to place Cromwell's wife Kelly (Jane McGregor) and daughter Alix (Kate Vernon) in jeopardy while dad is off being a hero. The film's level of credibility reaches a crest when Jay Leno makes a cameo appearance as himself. Seen from the vantage point of the post-9/11, post-Hurricane Katrina era, Y2K seems as quaint and naïve as a 1908 Biograph one-reeler -- perhaps even more so. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Few films made in Japan have created such international outrage as Shunya Ito's Pride -- an affectionate biopic on that country's most notorious prime minister, Hideki Tojo, who was hanged in 1948 during the Tokyo trials for war crimes. Funded by renown ultra right-wing investors, this film struck many in China and Korea -- two countries on the receiving end of much of Japanese war crimes -- as close to a deliberate provocation, especially since Japan has yet to officially come clean about such wartime atrocities as the Rape of Nanking or the murderous Unit 731. Instead of the incarnation of evil that U.S. propaganda portrayed him as, Tojo, played by Masahiko Tsugawa, is presented as being a brilliant leader, a passionate nationalist, and a loving family man. His goal was not the subjection of Asia under a Japanese empire, but to cast off the yolk of Western colonialism. American prosecutor Joseph Keenan (Scott Wilson) is seen as shrill, ignorant, and scheming, while Indian judge Radhabinod Pal as the sole dissenting jurist is the film's only non-Japanese hero. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In this comic suspense story, sixth-grader Allison Parker (Katie Stuart) likes to imagine herself something of a detective, keeping tabs on what goes on in her neighborhood and communicating with her best friend Jane Walker (Emily Lipoma) via walkie talkie. (In the manner of good spies everywhere, Allison used the code name "Frog" when talking via radio and insists Jane call herself "Wombat.") However, when the girl's new principal, Larry Struble (Ronny Cox), moves in next door, Allison begins to wonder if she might have a real mystery to investigate when Larry's niece Nancy (Jessica Cashman) disappears a few days after he's moved in. Convinced foul play is afoot, Allison begins snooping, with Jane her reluctant helper, though Jane is hardly as convinced as her friend when she decides that a missing refrigerator, a stray wedding ring, and some photos of a mystery woman add up to murder. Lindsay Wagner also appears as Allison's mother, in whom Larry seems to have taken an interest. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Greg Davis (Michael Reilly Burke) was 12 years old when his childhood sweetheart Karen Carlson disappeared while en route to his home. 17 years later, Greg, now a schoolteacher, is astonished by the sudden appearance of an enigmatic young woman (Melissa Gilbert) who claims to be the long-missing Karen. The woman's vivid recollections of abduction, and the fact that she knows many of Karen's innermost secrets, convince Greg that she's the genuine article. But Karen's father Warren (Ronny Cox) and detective James Walker (Leon Russom) are not so easily persuaded--and when Karen begins to behave in a bizarre, erratic fashion, the possibility arises that she may not be whom she claims to be...and that her past is far more sinister than anyone could imagine. Alternating between a full-color "present" and black-and-white vignettes of "the past", the made-for-TV Childhood Sweetheart? debuted March 18, 1997, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a true story, this inspirational made-for-television drama recounts the valiant struggle of North Carolina state basketball coach Jim Vavano to overcome cancer and to turn his players into champions. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this fact-based drama, a real estate agent is horrified to learn that a home buyer is the one who killed her policeman husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi