Giancarlo Esposito Movies

Suspecting that thieves have stashed millions in stolen bills in a nondescript Los Angeles home, a disgraced LAPD detective leads an invasion that quickly goes awry. Later, as two homicide detectives (Gabrielle Union and Giancarlo Esposito) interrogate the survivors - a fearless thief and a shell-shocked victim - it's gradually revealed that the detective's motives are clouded in mystery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An emotionally stunted ex-convict whose recent release from prison finds her attempting to form a relationship with her young daughter finds that redemption doesn't come easy in this emotional family drama, the feature debut of award-winning documentary filmmaker Laurie Collyer. When Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) was sentenced to three years in prison on a drug-related robbery conviction at the age of 22, she had just given birth to a daughter named Alexis (Ryan Simpkins). Placed in the care of Sherry's brother, Bobby (Brad William Henke), and sister-in-law, Lynette (Bridget Barkan), while her mother was behind bars, young Alexis has grown into an affectionate young girl eager to reconnect with the mother she has never met. Though Sherry at first seems determined to stay on the straight and narrow, increasingly infrequent visits to Alexis and a troubling revelation about her family past soon begin to lead the protective Lynette to take a stand in protecting the vulnerable youngster. Later, when compassionate 12-step veteran Dean (Danny Trejo) makes an effort to help Sherry become the mother she longs to be, the troubled ex-con is faced with the choice of truly living up to her word or potentially losing her daughter forever. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A quiet community reveals an ugly underside in the wake of a horrible crime in this independent drama. Robbie Levinson (Seth Peterson) and Trey McCoy (Brian J. Smith) are a gay couple who've been together for six years; they've been sharing a comfortable home in suburban Dallas most of that time, and are planning to get married once the legalities work themselves. Robbie and Trey are good neighbors who get along well with the other folks in the community until Chris Boyd (Chad Donella) moves in next door. Chris is a youth pastor at a church run by his father (Bruce Davison), a fundamentalist Christian who preaches often and with great vehemence about the evils of homosexuality. Chris doesn't keep his feelings about gays to himself, and when Trey is found dead in a nearby park, the victim of a sadistic beating with a baseball bat, Robbie believes Chris may be involved. However, Chris' father and mother provide an alibi for him, and the police hand the case from Detective Fisher (Farah White), who investigates hate crimes, to Sgt. Esposito (Giancarlo Esposito) in the homicide department. Robbie is appalled to discover he's now the leading suspect in the murder, and begins making his own investigation into Trey's death. Hate Crime was the first feature film from writer and director Tommy Stovall. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A handful of New Yorkers struggle to tie together the loose ends of their lives following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in this drama. It has been several weeks since the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell, and Liz (Janeane Garofalo), a writer who watched as one of the jets sailed past her window and into the skyscraper, has refused to leave her apartment since the disaster. However, an eccentric but street-smart poet named Karl (Giancarlo Esposito) carries a torch for Liz and is determined to bring her back to the land of the living. Judy (Nicole Hansen) suffers through an unpleasant one-night stand with Billy (Dov Davidoff) before waking up in the apartment of Punch (Tony Spiridakis), a fellow lost soul whose car is covered with the dust left by the falling towers...only now, some of his neighbors claim they can see a holy apparition in the dirt, so it's hard for him to move. And Samantha (Jennifer Carpenter), who has been observing the neighborhood from behind the bar at a local watering hole, finds some much-needed comfort in the arms of renegade would-be rock singer Gina Mascara (Pauley Perrette). Screened at film festivals as Ash Tuesday, Beyond the Ashes was written by Tony Spiridakis, who also plays Punch. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Miguel Pinero became a leading figure in New York's art scene during the 1970s as a poet, actor, and playwright whose vibrant, often pointed, work spoke directly to the lower classes and to disenfranchised minorities. As a founder of the influential Nuyorican Poets Cafe, his poetry soon became recognized as a forerunner to rap and hip-hop music. TV screenwriter turned director Leon Ichaso spins this impressionistic biographical look at this artist. Raised in an abusive family, Pinero (Benjamin Bratt) turns to streets for solace. Soon he is engaging in petty crime, drug dealing, and addiction. When he finds himself in Sing-Sing, he turns his experiences in prison into the play Short Eyes, which eventually garners him seven Tony awards in 1974. Uncomfortable with his new fame, he clings to his girlfriend, Sugar (Talisa Soto), and his childhood buddy, Miguel Algarin (Giancarlo Esposito), who is a literature professor and who co-founded the Nuyorican Cafe. Though Pinero makes cameos on such shows as Kojak, his art begins to suffer as he starts to succumb to his drug addictions. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Some six months after the cancellation of the popular, hard-hitting TV cop series Homicide, most of the cast members were reunited for a two-hour TV movie, which deftly (and somewhat surprisingly) combines stark, raw realism with Sartre-esque flights of fantasy. Several members past and present of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide squad are brought back together when their former skipper and current mayoral candidate, Al "G" Giardelli (Yaphet Kotto), is gunned down by a would-be assassin. As former partners Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) conduct their own personal search for the perpetrator, the comatose "G" discovers that not all police review boards are conducted by the living. Like its weekly predecessor, Homicide: The Movie was co-produced by Baltimore native Barry Levinson. The film made its first NBC network TV appearance on February 13, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the seventh and final season of Homicide: Life on the Street, Baltimore detectives Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Kellerman (Reed Diamond) have resigned in the wake of the bloody shoot-out between the homicide cops and the minions of criminal mastermind Georgia Rae Mahoney (though Kellerman will return in a later episode as a private detective). Seriously wounded in the fray, detectives Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and Ghary (Peter Gerety) eventually return to work, but it is clear that some emotional scars will never heal. Former recurring character Det. Terri Stivers (Toni Lewis) has become a regular, while new cast members include Michael Michele as Detective Rene Sheppard, a former beauty queen, and Giancarlo Esposito as FBI agent Mike Giardello, the long-estranged son of homicide lieutenant Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto). Before the year is out, Mike will make Al a grandfather; Detective Munch (Richard Belzer) will finally propose to his long-suffering girlfriend, Billie Lou McCoy (Ellen McElduff); detectives Det. Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Falsone (Jon Seda) will enter into a romance so torrid that Giardello is forced to warn them to cool things down or they'll be suspended; and Rene Sheppard will endure both a serious injury and a humiliating suspension. Episode highlights include yet another crossover with Law & Order, this one involving an investigation conducted by a Kenneth Starr-like special prosecutor and appropriately titled "Sideshow," and the devastating "Line of Fire," in which the homicide cops try and fail to negotiate with a reluctant murderer. Homicide caps its seven-season run with good news for Giardello; the unauthorized shootdown of a killer who has managed to slip through the legal cracks; and a literal "full circle" for Bayliss (Kyle Secor), whose career with the Baltimore PD began with the series' first episode...and ends with the last one. ~ All Movie Guide

Sheppard (Michael Michele) and Ballard (Callie Thorne) have trouble sustaining their objectivity as they investigate the death of a teenaged member of an all-girl street gang. Meanwhile, Billie Lou (Ellen McElduff) prevails upon her fiancé, Munch (Richard Belzer), to mediate in her neighbors' domestic disputes -- with devastating results. Series regular Richard Belzer's stepdaughter Bree Benton appears as Lizzie Solek in this episode, which was orginally scheduled to air on May 7, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man is found murdered -- with his nose removed -- in his own backyard. To solves this case, Mike Giardello (Giancarlo Esposito) plumbs the depths of the Federal Witness Protection program, only to conclude that his FBI bosses aren't being up-front with him. Elsewhere, a bartender at a strip club is killed, the medical examiners "misplace" the identity of a corpse, and Gharty's (Peter Gerety) drinking increases. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While investigating the beating death of a Buddhist monk, Lewis (Clark Johnson) worries that his born-again-Buddhist partner, Bayliss (Kyle Secor), will not be able to remain objective -- thus Lewis teams with the prickly Munch (Richard Belzer). In another case, a street shooting investigated by Gharty (Peter Gerety) and Ballard (Callie Throne) is complicated by three wildly contradictory "eyewitness" recollections. And on a personal note, Ballard comes to a crossroads in her relationship with Falsone (Jon Seda). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This episode of Homicide: Life on the Street is the conclusion of a two-part story introduced on its "sister" series Law & Order. Newly appointed to a district court bench, ADA Danvers (Zeljko Ivanek) brings the Baltimore homicide unit into the investigation of the death of governmental official Janine McBride, who, despite being found murdered in New York City, was actually killed in Baltimore. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) is mad that his son Mike (Giancarlo Esposito) turned over confidential information about the McBride case to his FBI bosses, who, in turn, handed it over to Independent Counsel William Dell (George Hearn) -- resulting in immunity for the accused murderer. As it turns out, the ruthless Dell (who bears a startling resemblance to Kenneth Starr) is using both the Baltimore cops and Law & Order regulars Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt), Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) as unwitting stepping stones for his own political ambitions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A ritual murder is played out on the Internet, but the homicide detectives aren't certain whether the killing is real or an elaborate hoax. Whatever the case, the detectives "stake out" the Web when it is announced that another murder will occur at midnight. In the course of the investigation, the squad discovers that Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is running his own website -- much to Bayliss' embarrassment. The climax of this episode will dictate the outcome of Homicide: Life on the Street's series finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide