Barry "Shabaka" Henley

Emotionally distanced form his two young sons following the untimely death of his devoted wife, an troubled detective investigates a series of murders that seem to be based on the Biblical prophecies concerning the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in a dark psychological thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Zhang Ziyi. Patrick Fugit, Clifton Collins, Jr.}, Neil McDonough, and Peter Stormare co-star in a film by Spun director Jonas Åckerlund and Doom screenwriter Dave Callaham. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A young boy grows up among a makeshift family of oddballs and dreamers in this adaptation of Ruben Santiago-Hudson's acclaimed one-man show. Ruben Junior (Marcus Carl Franklin) is a young boy who was born in the late '40s into a family that started crumbling not long after he was born. Ruben Junior's parents were from Lackawanna, a city in Upstate New York, and were living in a rooming house run by Nanny Crosby (S. Epatha Merkerson), whose place was a hub for the local African-American community. When Ruben Junior's parents split up, he and his mother return to Lackawanna and Nanny's rooming house; with mother overworked physically and in sad shape emotionally, Nanny takes Ruben Junior under her wing, and offers him the sort of nurturing she gives all her boarders. Nanny's house is full of people struggling for a fresh start in life, ranging from former convicts to recovering drug addicts, and she opens both her doors and her heart to them as they strive to make themselves better people. Ruben Junior finds a loving home amidst the colorful eccentrics in Nanny's circle of friends, but as America changes over the course of the 1950s and '60s, so does the neighborhood where Nanny and her tenants live -- and not for the better. Produced for the premium cable network HBO, Lackawanna Blues features a stellar supporting cast, including Delroy Lindo, Louis Gossett Jr., Rosie Perez, Jimmy Smits, Jeffrey Wright, Mos Def, and Ernie Hudson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Four men come together to find out how and why the woman who raised them was killed in this hard-edged urban drama from director John Singleton. Short-tempered Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), struggling musician Jack (Garrett Hedlund), streetwise Angel (Tyrese Gibson), and hard-working Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin) are four guys who don't appear to have much in common, in terms of either race or temperament. However, these men have one very important bond -- all four were adopted and raised by the same woman (Fionnula Flanagan), and they all love her as a mother, and respect one another as brothers. When their mother is killed during a robbery at a grocery store, the four brothers come together for the funeral, but when they don't get straight answers about what happened to her, they begin looking into the crime themselves. The deeper they dig into the case, the more the brothers begin to suspect that the shooting wasn't an accident, and that powerful and unexpected forces were involved. Four Brothers marked one of the first starring roles for Andre Benjamin, better known as Andre 3000 of the top selling hip-hop group OutKast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Shot almost entirely on a two-and-a-half-story recreation of a full-size operating airport terminal, this romantic comedy from director Steven Spielberg revolves around an Eastern European man by the name of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), whose plans of immigrating to New York were hastened by a violent coup in his home country. Unfortunately, Viktor finds himself on the wrong end of a nasty technicality while en route to America: His passport was issued from a country, which, during its upheaval, ceased to exist in an official capacity. Unauthorized to leave Kennedy Airport upon his arrival and unable to return home, Viktor finds himself exiled inside the terminal's international transit lounge. Though airport official Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) views Viktor as an annoying bureaucratic glitch, other airport employees -- including a beautiful flight attendant by the name of Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) -- come to see him as a welcome, if unofficial, addition to their numbers. As the days stretch on into months, the terminal transforms from an intimidating atmosphere of forced assimilation into a country within itself, complete with culture, ambition, status, complex diversity, and the need for love. The supporting cast includes Diego Luna, Chi McBride, Kumar Pallana, Zoe Saldana, Eddie Jones, and Jude Ciccolella. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Michael Mann of Miami Vice fame was the principle guiding force behind the CBS cop drama Robbery Homicide Division. In a major casting coup, Mann managed to sign the extremely "hot" film star Tom Sizemore for the lead role of Sam Cole, a hard-nosed LAPD robbery-homicide investigator. As head of a crack team of gumshoes, the obsessive, relentless Cole solved all manner of baffling urban crimes. Lensed on high-definition film and possessed of the "cutting-edge" style which typified the Michael Mann ouevre, Robbery Homicide Division first aired on September 27, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comedians Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence team up for a story that wouldn't appear to have many immediate humorous possibilities -- two men serving life sentences in prison for a crime they did not commit. Life opens in Harlem in 1932, where Ray Gibson (Eddie Murphy) is a small-time con man in debt to Spanky, a gangster (Rick James). Ray spots would-be bank teller Claude Banks (Martin Lawrence) at a gambling spot and, figuring him for an easy mark, lifts his wallet -- only to discover Claude is broke. Ray and Claude's mutual need to raise some cash brings them together when Spanky offers them a job bringing back a load of moonshine from bootleggers in the deep south. However, things don't go well for Ray and Claude, and they're arrested by a sheriff in Mississippi who recently killed a man and needs someone on whom he can hang the charge. Since Ray and Claude are black, from out of town and have been caught red-handed with a load of illegal liquor, the sheriff figures they're easy pickings and frames them for the murder. Soon the two men are inmates in a Southern work camp, where they spend the next 55 years learning to get along with the other inmates, avoiding the wrath of the guards, seeing younger prisoners come and go and never losing hope that someday, somehow, their innocence will be proven and they'll be released. Life is the second screen pairing for Murphy and Lawrence, who also shared screen time in 1992's Boomerang, and was scripted by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone from an original idea by Murphy. The supporting cast includes Ned Beatty, Clarence Williams III, Bernie Mac, Nick Cassavetes and R. Lee Ermey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this quirky drama, Julian Goddard is stranded in the desert and dying of thirst when suddenly Johnny Destiny drives up and gives him a ride to the ramshackle Marilyn Motel near Las Vegas. There they meet the owner, Harry Thoreau, with whom Julian attempted to rob a bank three years before. It is revealed that Julian is an escaped convict who has returned to get his share of the take and reclaim his former girlfriend Lucille, who is working as a lounge singer at her boyfriend's casino. While Julian endeavors to realize his goal, Destiny frequently appears to guide him and the others along their proper paths. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Denzel Washington stars in this adaptation of the novel by African-American crime author Walter Mosley, the first of his stories to reach the screen. Ezekiel Rawlins (Washington), known to his friends as "Easy," has just lost his job at an aircraft plant in post-WW II Los Angeles, a time when good-paying jobs for black men are hard to come by. He's wondering how to make his mortgage payment when he's approached by De Witt Albright (Tom Sizemore), who describes his job as "doing favors for friends." It seems that a woman named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) has gone missing; Daphne is the former girlfriend of wealthy mayoral candidate Todd Carter (Terry Kinney) and a known habitué of the black jazz clubs and night spots on L.A.'s Central Avenue. Albright offers Easy $100 to help him find Daphne, and while he doesn't have any detective experience, the price is right, so Easy agrees. After a passionate affair with a friend of Daphne's, Coretta James (Lisa Nicole Carson), leads to that woman's murder, Easy enlists the help of his friend Mouse (Don Cheadle), who seems to know just a bit too well how to use a gun, which gives Easy all too clear a look at the lower depths of L.A.'s upper crust. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After several weeks filming The Scout in the late 1970s, star Peter Falk and director Howard Zieff abandoned the project. Two decades later, writer Andrew Bergman gave his original script to Albert Brooks and Monica Johnson, who polished it as a vehicle for Brooks and director Michael Ritchie. Brooks stars as Al Percolo, a talent scout for the New York Yankees whose latest recruit (Michael Rapaport) has just vomited on the field and fled. Sent to Mexico as punishment by his boss (Lane Smith), Percolo finds phenomenal young pitcher Steve Nebraska (Brendan Fraser). Before he can get back to the Big Apple, however, Percolo gets pink-slipped by the Yankees, so he offers Nebraska as a free agent. After a stellar tryout, Nebraska is signed for millions. Soon after, he starts to exhibit odd behaviors that may be linked to psychological problems. A psychiatrist (Dianne Wiest) hired by the ball club wants Nebraska in daily therapy, so Percolo ends up babysitting a mentally unstable pitcher. Brooks' normally winning mix of laughs with psychological insights didn't add up to box office or critical success, despite cameos from real-life sports figures such as George Steinbrenner and Steve Garvey. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A handful of up-and-coming songwriters discover that love is as difficult to navigate as the music business in this romantic comedy-drama from director Peter Bogdanovich. Miranda Presley (Samantha Mathis) is an aspiring singer/songwriter from New York City who loves country music and has decided to take her chances in Nashville, TN, where she hopes to strike it big as a musician. After arriving in the Music City after a long bus ride, Miranda makes her way to the Bluebird Café, a local watering hole with a reputation as a showcase for new talent. The bar's owner, Lucy (K.T. Oslin), takes a shine to the shy but plucky newcomer, and gives her a job as a waitress. Before long, Miranda has gotten to know a number of other Nashville transplants who are look looking to land a gig or sell a song, among them sweet and open-hearted Kyle Davidson (Dermot Mulroney), moody but talented James Wright (River Phoenix), and spunky Linda Lue Linden (Sandra Bullock). As the four friends struggle to find their place in the competitive Nashville music scene, both Kyle and James display a romantic interest in Miranda, while she finds it difficult to choose between the two. The Thing Called Love features cameos from a number of noted country performers, including Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, Katy Moffatt, Jo-El Sonnier, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Sadly, The Thing Called Love would be best remembered as the last film actor River Phoenix completed before his death in the fall of 1993. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide