Bob Gunton Movies

Armand Mastroianni, the gifted director of the legendary 1980 horror sleeper He Knows You're Alone, returns to helm the three-hour, all-star medical miniseries Pandemic. The program explores the lethal consequences that can unfurl when a deadly plague, with an unknown cure and an even more mysterious source, worms its way through the denizens of a terror-stricken metropolis. 90210's Tiffani-Amber Thiessen stars as Dr. Kayla Martin, an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control. When the news arrives of a plague victim on board a flight from Australia to LAX Airport in Los Angeles -- who promptly dies amid body-racking convulsions and a record-high fever -- Dr. Martin makes the pivotal decision to quarantine all passengers at LAX, sending the city, and the mayor (Eric Roberts), into an uproar. Meanwhile, the plague concurrently begins to appear in other areas of the city -- suggesting a beast that no one can even begin to contain. In time, the disease becomes known as "The Riptide Virus." As a thoughtless ACLU attorney schemes to wage war against Dr. Martin for an unlawful quarantine, Martin, her associate Carl Ratner (French Stewart), and FBI Agent Troy Whitlock (Vincent Spano) race to find a solution before time runs out. Faye Dunaway also co-stars. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) is a far from disinterested witness when Bree (Marcia Cross) goes out to lunch with the charming but slightly sinister George Williams (Roger Bart). Meanwhile, Bree's husband, Rex (Steven Culp), continues to suffer from ill health (can there be a connection somewhere?). And in other developments, Susan (Teri Hatcher) forgives Mike (James Denton) for his fatal "indiscretion"; Felicia (Felicity Huffman) takes a hand in Zach's (Cody Kasch) problems; and Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) finds out that birth control is not 100 percent effective -- especially when it's been tampered with. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The journal of the late Mrs. Huber forces Susan (Teri Hatcher) to tell all to Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) about the fire. Bree (Marcia Cross) is having second thoughts about dating George Williams (Roger Bart). Lynette (Felicity Huffman) allows a misunderstanding to go uncorrected to get her son in daycare while she does yoga. And the financial situation of Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) has been set on its ear thanks to recent unpleasant plot developments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is reunited with his former father-in-law Dwight Ellison (Bob Gunton), the producer of the popular TV game show "Treasure Chest." Convinced that the game's current champion Val Birch (Larry Brandenberg) is cheating, Ellison asks Monk to investigate. The solution to the mystery rests in the fact that "Treasure Chest" host Roddy Lankman (John Michael Higgins) has recently murdered his personal assistant--but Monk will only be able to crack the case if he becomes a contestant himself. This episode introduces Jarrad Paul as Monk's obnoxious upstairs neighbor Kevin Dorfman, and, in a flashback sequence, Melora Hardin as Monk's late wife Trudy (a role previously essayed by Stella Rusich). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The press box at a small high-school football field yields the strangled body of Nebraska woman Alison Carpenter. The CSI's investigation reveals that Alison died an hour before her corpse was found, and that she may have perished during a session of rough consensual sex. Among the suspects are meth addict Jason Kent (Max Martini) and a pair of ex-convicts (Luis Antonio Ramos and Raymond Cruz) who were in the same street gang. On a more personal note, the entire CSI team works overtime to find out the source of an explosion in their own DNA lab, in which a technician was badly injured. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Jodi Picoult, the made-for-cable The Pact is the story of two neighboring families, the Golds and the Hartes. Best friends for decades, Melanie Gold (Megan Mulally) and Gus Harte (Juliet Stevenson) have managed to envelop their husbands and their children in this strong and seemingly unbreakable bond of friendship. All this changes in a devastatingly tragic fashion when Melanie's daughter Emily (Meghann Henderson) and Gus's son Christopher (Eric Lively), who have grown up together, enter high school. For reasons that are not fully explained at first, Emily and Gus enter into an apparent suicide pact; ultimately, shots are fired, Emily dies, and Chris is put on trial for murder. Capped by a genuinely surprising denoument, The Pact made its Lifetime Network debut on November 4, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Noted baseball fan Billy Crystal directed this made-for-cable drama set in the summer of 1961, as two of the strongest hitters in the major leagues, Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper), find themselves neck and neck in a battle to break Babe Ruth's long-standing record for most home runs in a season. Both men were playing for the New York Yankees at the time, and as the two men came within grasping distance of Ruth's record, their loyalty as friends and teammates was put to the ultimate test. 61 also features Richard Masur, Bruce McGill, Anthony Michael Hall, and Renee Taylor; the scenes set in Yankee Stadium were filmed at Michigan's Tiger Stadium, shortly after the Detroit Tigers shuttered the venerable playing field and relocated to a newer facility. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Tom Selleck stretches his dramatic range by playing a liberal Democrat in this comedy-drama satirizing the underside of party politics. Governor James Pryce (Tom Selleck) is a well-respected politician with a strong reformist streak who is a shoo-in for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, thanks to a well-run primary campaign organized by his manager Lauren Hartman (Laura Linney), and the savvy speechmaking and moral support of his wife Jenny (Nancy Travis). Now Pryce has to pick a vice-presidential candidate, which proves to be not all that simple. Senator Parker Gable (Robert Culp) helped give Pryce his start in politics, and his wife Meg (Faye Dunaway), a Queen Bee on the Washington social scene, has asked Pryce to consider Gable as VP. Pryce believes Gable would be the right man for the job, but he's well known to chase anything in a skirt, and Pryce thinks his nomination would be a scandal waiting to happen. Besides Gable, the two most likely choices for Pryce's running mate are Senator Mitchell Morris (Bruce McGill), whose strong links to a number of corporate benefactors make Pryce nervous, and Senator Terrence Randall (Bob Grunton), whose outspoken support of campaign finance reform does not sit well with Shawna Morgan (Teri Hatcher), the fundraising expert who has been filling Pryce's war chest. Running Mates was produced for the TNT cable network, where it first aired on August 13, 2000; Gerald Rafshoon, the film's executive producer, has an inside perspective on Washington wheelings and dealings, having served as White House director of communications under President Jimmy Carter. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The tragic story of the Ruby Ridge "massacre" has been so thoroughly covered and disseminated by the mainstream press that to add anything here would be pointless. Suffice to say that the two-part TV movie The Siege at Ruby Ridge uses the facts at hand to show how the tragedy occurred, and how but for a multitude of blunders and miscommunications on both sides, it could all have been avoided. Randy Quaid stars as white separatist Randy Weaver, who for ten terrible days in 1992 barricaded himself, his family, and a number of zealous followers in a tiny refuge on a remote Idaho mountaintop, while 200 government agents surrounded Weaver's headquarters with orders to arrest Weaver's group alive -- if possible. The catalyst for the crisis is of course Randy Weaver himself, though his wife Vicki (Laura Dern) is shown to be just as rigid, stubborn, and foolhardy as her husband -- maybe even more so. Ultimately, blood is shed and lives are lost, the result of such gross ineptitude that the ramifications of the tragedy would reverberate for decades to come. Featured in the cast is Laura Dern's real-life mother, Diane Ladd, and, in the small role of the Weaver's daughter, a very young Kirsten Dunst. The Siege at Ruby Ridge first aired over CBS on May 19 and 21, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally made for cable television, Roswell is an entertaining mix of purported actual events and science fiction. The narrative unfolds primarily in flashbacks as retired Army officer Jesse Marcel (Kyle MacLachlan) attends a reunion of the 509th Bomber Group and tries to come to closure on events that had taken place 30 years earlier. Back in 1947, Major Marcel had been part of a military team that investigated a crash site on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The debris recovered from the site had exhibited some remarkable properties such as being able to repair itself instantly after being cut, suggesting that it might have been of extraterrestrial origin. The military brass had ordered Marcel to go along with their phony story that the material was ordinary metal foil from a weather balloon, and he had reluctantly complied. By the time of the 1977 reunion, Marcel is suffering from a terminal illness, and he feels compelled to try to find out what had really happened at Roswell all those years ago. MacLachlan gives an effective performance, particularly when he portrays Marcel as an older man trying to understand his past. Evocative location shooting in the American Southwest adds cinematic impact. ~ All Movie Guide

The miserable life and long-overdue death of thrill killer Charles Starkweather is the basis of the two-part TV movie Murder in the Heartland. Over a bloody few months in 1958, Starkweather (Tim Roth), a 19-year-old high school dropout, embarked on a killing spree, snuffing out 11 victims. Along for the ride was Charlie's 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate (Fairuza Balk). The debate still goes on as to whether Caril Ann was a willing accomplice or a reluctant prisoner; as played by Ms. Balk, she comes off as dumb as mud. A shorter, fictionalized account of the Starkweather killings was offered in the critically acclaimed 1973 theatrical feature Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Murder in the Heartland originally aired May 3 and 4, 1993. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-cable thriller, Mimi Rogers portrays a cop who, burned out by her work, transfers to the forensics staff as an evidence photographer. While investigating a string of killings, the trail of evidence leads to the married man with whom she's having an affair. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide