Pat Bermel Movies
- 1993
The two-part "Suffer the Children," all about the investigation of a runaway's death, opens the third season of The Commish. With his wife, Rachel (Theresa Saldana), pursuing a new career in Buffalo, Tony Scali (Michael Chiklis), police commissioner of Eastbridge, NY, considers quitting his job, joining his wife, and starting a new career of his own as a private eye. Though this doesn't happen, Eastside's PD does lose a couple of its best officers, Carmela Pagan and Gordy Tuefel (respectively played in previous seasons by Gina Belafonte and Michael Patten). And at the tail end of season three, officer Stan Kelly (Geoffrey Nauffts) makes a startling and spectacular exit in a car explosion. In other developments, Tony must come to the rescue of wife Rachel twice, first when she is framed for murder, then when she is taken hostage by bank robbers; Chief of Detectives Cyd Madison (Melinda McGraw) is drawn into a potential fatal attraction; Stan Kelly's fiancée is implicated in a robbery; and one of the cops shakes up the precinct when he comes out of the closet. As the season draws to a close, Tony must deal with the fallacies and failures of the court system when trying to protect a little girl from being molested by her wealthy and well-connected father. ~ Rovi
Season two of The Commish finds unorthodox, freewheeling Tony Scali (Michael Chiklis) still securely installed as police commissioner in the suburban New York community of Eastbridge. There have, however, been some changes within Tony's circle of associates: Chief of Detectives Paulie Pentangeli has been succeeded by Cyd Madison (Melinda McGraw), and officer Jonathan Papdakis (Ray Scrivano) has been added to the roster. Likewise, the population of Scali's own home has been altered somewhat: wife Rachel (Theresa Saldana) has given birth to daughter Sarah (played by twin infants Dayna and Justine Cornborough), and Tony's freeloading brother-in-law Arnie (played during Season One by David Paymer) will have moved out by season's end. In the two-part season opener "Adventures in the Skin Trade", Tony goes undercover in the porn-film industry to locate a missing person--and gets kidnapped in the process. Subsequent episodes touch upon such issues as vigilante justice, high-class call girls, 20th century witchcraft, TV reality shows and "blue flu." Guest stars include game-show host Pat Sajak as a psychiatrist in "The Two Faces of Ed," Stella Stevens as a faded movie star in "Eastbridge Boulevard," and, in one of his last TV outings, Telly Savalas as a retired (?) racketeer in "The Frame" and the two-part "Family Business." The second season ends on a cliffhanger as Tony's wife, Rachel, considers leaving her family to accept a job out of town. ~ Rovi
Quite a lot of difficult cases cross the desk of Eastbridge, NY, police commissioner Tony Scali (Michael Chiklis) during season one of The Commish. Scali and his associates must tackle everything from rapists to child molesters to white supremacists -- and on a lighter note, the men in the department find themselves vying for the opportunity to pose for a "beefcake" calendar. Highlight episodes include the two-part "A Matter of Life and Death" (the series' pilot, though not the first episode to be shown), and "Charlie Don't Surf," which features a compelling performance by Hang S. Ngor of The Killing Fields fame. Changes occurring during the season's 22 episodes include the departure of Chief of Detectives Irv Wallenstein (Alex Bruhanski), who is almost immediately replaced by Paulie Pentangeli (John Cygan); and the announcement by Tony's wife, Rachel (Theresa Saldana), that she is about to become a mother -- again. ~ Rovi
Based on the life and career of Tony Schembri, police chief of Rye, NY, the weekly, hour-long ABC crime series The Commish starred Michael Chiklis as Tony Scali, police commissioner of the fictional New York community of Eastbridge. Although dedicated to his job and extremely tough on perpetrators, Tony often took an unorthodox approach to police methods, and he was often known to be quite a jovial fellow amongst his co-workers. Tony also enjoyed his "down time," especially with his wife, Rachel (Theresa Saldana), son David (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), and infant daughter Sarah (played by twins Dayna and Justine Cornborough), who was born at the end of the series' first season. Anoher member of the Scali household -- at least during the show's first year or so on the air -- was Tony's cheerfully indolent brother-in-law, Arnie Metzger (David Paymer). Back on the job, Tony's associates included three different Chief of Detectives: Irv Wallerstein (Alex Bruhanski), Paulie Pentangeli (John Cygan), and Cyd Madison (Melinda McGraw). Among the other crew members were officer Stan Kelly (Geoffrey Nauffts), who is killed by a car bombing at the end of season three, patrol car officer Ricky Caruso (Nicholas Lea) and his partner officer Carmela Pagan (Gina Belafonte), officers Jonathan Papdakis (Ray Scrivano), Gordy Tuefel (Michael Patten), and Mike Rose (Pat Bermel) and detectives Lopez (Jason Scott Schombing) and Hibbs (Ian Tracey). Another fine product from Stephen J. Cannell's production firm, The Commish was filmed in its entirety in Vancouver, despite its distinctively "New Yawk" setting and attitude. The series lasted four full season, plus a limited run of four "movie specials" in 1995. ~ Rovi
- 1987
Mark Harmon plays an itinerant Depression-era carpenter in the made-for-TV After the Promise. When his wife dies, Harmon is declared an unsuitable parent purely on the basis of his financial situation, and his four children are made wards of the Court. Fighting against the seemingly invulnerable legal system of the era, Harmon struggles to regain custody of his children-a struggle that drags on for eight years. Robert W. Lenski's teleplay was inspired by a true story. Because of the time-span of the plotline, Harmon's four children are portrayed by 13 different juvenile actors. After the Promise debuted October 11, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mark Harmon
Six people are invited to a remote island by a famous horror author, Roland Levy (Lance Henriksen), for dinner and conversation. The only thing the people have in common is that they know Roland, although it turns out some have connections that aren't apparent. During dinner, Roland reveals that during a soul-searching expedition in the Andes, the local Indians poisoned him -- and he died. But when he was revived he saw the world differently and found the spirit within himself to become a better person. And now he wants to do the same for his six friends, who have been eating and drinking while he's been talking. And guess what? They've been poisoned -- and if they admit to the errors of their ways he'll give them the antidote. ~ Buzz McClain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lance Henriksen, Christopher Shyer, (more)
A group of ten men come together for a bachelor party that goes horribly wrong in this made-for-TV drama. Mario Van Peebles and John Stockwell star as old friends Michael and Victor, both of them successful, well-off young professionals. The latter is about to be married, so Michael throws him a lavish party complete with booze, drugs, a pair of stripper sisters and some old friends that Michael would actually rather not see, including Pete (Andrew McCarthy), a street-smart drug dealer. When one of the girls is accidentally killed and her handler is shot in the ensuing confusion, the group of men reacts in completely different ways. Timan (John Henson) becomes completely unraveled, while others like Pete and Daniel (Kevin Dillon) keep their cool and try to come up with a viable plan to handle their new "problem." A next door neighbor (Jerry Stiller) who comes over to investigate the noise only compounds the problem. Stag bore almost precisely the same plot as Very Bad Things (1998), a more comic take on the story that was released theatrically one year later. The surviving stripper was played by former pop music star Taylor Dayne. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Andrew McCarthy, John Stockwell, (more)
This murder mystery from director Carl Schenkel stars Christopher Lambert (Highlander) as Peter Sanderson, an expert chess champion. When a woman Sanderson has recently slept with is among several women brutally murdered at a chess tournament, he becomes a suspect. But when the murderer contacts Sanderson and informs him that he's set up a maniacal human chess game, he realizes that he'll have to beat the murderer to stop the killings and clear his own name. Diane Lane plays a psychologist who falls for Sanderson, and Tom Skerritt is the local sheriff investigating the case. Knight Moves won the Critics Award at the 1992 Cognac Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Lambert, Diane Lane, (more)
- 1992
- R
A woman is terrorized by her former lover in her apartment, which he remodeled to his own specifications. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Dean Anderson, Marg Helgenberger, (more)
- 1989
- R
Chris Walas, the makeup and animatronics director on David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, takes a stab at directorial duties in this sequel. Before Seth Brundle morphed into scrap metal in the original The Fly, he managed to leave behind the seed of his legacy, and at the start of The Fly 2 his son, Martin (Eric Stoltz), has suffered an accelerated growth, thanks to his fly genes. Although played by Stoltz, Martin is supposed to be only five human years old, and unaware of his imminent transformation into a fly. All his life, Martin has been confined to a laboratory at Bartok Industries, where evil CEO Bartok (Lee Richardson) plans to breed a new race of super flies. Martin spends his days working in the lab experimenting with teleportation. But then Martin meets Beth (Daphne Zuniga), an attractive researcher. Martin is attracted to her, but not only do his hormones kick in, so do his fly genes. Soon, Martin begins to transform into a bug just like his father. Desperate to stop his transformation, he wreaks revenge upon Bartok while trying the find a mate with which to swap his unwanted fly genes before it's too late. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, (more)
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