Shawn Doyle Movies

A damaged family struggles to come to terms with their need for love in this comedy-drama from Canadian writer and director Adriana Maggs. Ray (Shawn Doyle) was a local hero in the small Newfoundland town where he grew up when he earned a spot on a major league hockey team, but after playing just one game he was busted for drugs, and after a stretch behind bars he returned home to an unglamorous career as a small time marijuana dealer. Ray is married to Lillian (Sherry White) and they have two daughters, Ruby (Tatiana Maslany) and Rose (Julia Kennedy), but when Lillian leaves her family behind to go to Hollywood in search of stardom, everyone looks for a way to keep the family together. Ray dates nearly every eligible woman in town in hopes of finding a new mother for his daughters, but despite outward appearances he's deep in denial about the fact he's gay. At the age of 13, Ruby is also confused about her sexuality; she's pretty enough to attract the attention of the boys at her school, and finds that dressing and acting like a flirt will get her the attention she craves. But when she asks her handicapped friend Stuart (Jonny Harris) to take some pictures she can send to movie producers in hopes of joining her mother in Hollywood, he encourages her to pose for some compromising shots that fall into the wrong hands. Grown Up Movie Star was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where Tatiana Maslany received a special jury prize for her breakout performance in the film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A U.S. marshall tracking a vicious murderer through the Antarctic must locate the killer before the sun sets for six months, or risk being trapped in the dark with the madman for months on end in director Dominic Sena's adaptation of the graphic novel series by Greg Rucka. U.S. marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) has been stationed at Antarctica's South Pole research base for two years, and now after turning in her resignation she's looking forward to finally going home. The last plane out leaves in just three days, and just after that Antarctica will not see the sun again for another 24 weeks. Then, just 72 hours before she is set to escape the coming darkness, a body is discovered in the ice -- prompting the first murder investigation ever to take place on the desolate Antarctic Circle continent. Little does Carrie realize that she's suddenly been thrust into a mystery over 60 years in the making, and that the killer is ready to strike again in order to protect a grim secret. Now, as the death toll starts to rise, loyalties shift, and a massive series of whiteouts blow bitter winds across the frozen landscape, the U.S. marshall who wanted nothing more than to escape the cold must work around the clock to catch a killer before the blinding white snow gives way to the deadly darkness of winter. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In a Vancouver neighborhood where the middle class share the streets with small-time criminals, prostitutes, and drug-dealers, the lives of three radically different couples interconnect in ways which can only be defined by looking at the big picture. Shortly after Doug (Ben Ratner) and Sarah (Camille Sullivan) move into their Mount Pleasant home with their six-year old daughter, the curious youngster pricks herself with a used hypodermic needle found in the backyard. Meanwhile, four blocks away, heroic-addicted teenage prostitute Nadia (Katie Boland) shares a ramshackle house with her drug dealing boyfriend and pimp Nick (Tygh Runyan). One of Nadia's best customers is affluent john Stephen Burrows (Shawn Doyle, whose high-class wife Anne (Kelly Rowan) works as a full time social coordinator and thirteen year-old daughter is maturing so fast that her preoccupied mother and father barely have time to notice. Their lives on an unexpected collision course, these Mount Pleasant residents are all about to find out that just how drastically their lives can be affected by people they would never even known existed if not for the intervention of fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

When a devout, forty year old Muslim woman from a traditional family falls in love with a handsome Canadian man, the stress of balancing her secret romance with her highly demanding family life gradually begins to take a heavy emotional toll. As a young girl, Sabah (Arsinée Khanjan) was always passionate an independent. When her family moved to Toronto and her father died shortly thereafter though, the once spirited young girl gradually found her independence stifled by two decades of duty to her loving yet high-maintenance family. It was around that time that Sabah's family became much more conservative, but a gift from Sabah's brother is about to change everything. Upon being bestowed with a picture of herself and her late father frolicking together in the ocean, Sabah longs for the days when familial obligations didn't weight on every aspect of her life. For as long as she can remember Sabah has had to answer to her tyrannical brother Majid - who controls not only the family finances but the actions of each member as well. But it was Majid who gave Sabah that powerful photograph, and who, despite his objection to westernization, inadvertently acted as the catalyst for his sister's life-altering journey. Longing to reconnect with the carefree memories of her childhood, Sabah stealthily sneaks off to celebrate her fortieth birthday with a secret swim. While the feel of the water and the thrill of rebellion immediately reinvigorate Sabah, it is a chance meeting with a man named Stephen that will truly change her life forever. Later, when Sabah's clandestine trips to the pool become a regular occurrence and Stephen invites her out to lunch, the differences between the unlikely couple seem to draw them together rather than pushing them apart. Before long Sabah has fallen in love with Stephen. In breaking the news to her disapproving family, however, Sabah attempts to explain how they must reconsider the rules of their culture if they are ever to find happiness in a foreign land. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Originally telecast over Canada's CTV network on January 29, 2002, A Killing Spring was a one-shot attempt to revive the popular Joanne Kilbourn Mysteries series (aka Criminal Instincts), starring Wendy Crewson as the ex-police-detective-turned-university-lecturer created by Gail Bowen. Missing from this feature-length whodunit is Joanne Kilbourn's longtime co-star Victor Garber, though Shane Doyle fills in admirably as the "official" representative of the law. In this one, Joanne Kilbourn returns to Lanholm College, where she had once been a professor, when the Dean of Journalism is found dead, evidently the result of autoerotic suffocation during "rough sex." Although she risks losing an important internship, Joanne insists upon investigating the death, and in the process unearths a hotbed of moral depravity and academic backstabbing. Throughout, there is one person who is willing to commit murder rather than allow Joanne to expose his innumerable peccadillos -- and the result, inevitably, is two additional corpses. In the United States, A Killing Spring was picked up by the Lifetime cable channel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This psychological thriller from screenwriter Patrick Smith Kelly reunites him with his A Perfect Murder (1998) star Michael Douglas. Dr. Nathan Conrad (Douglas) is a respected adolescent therapist faced with a nightmarish scenario when his young daughter (Skye McCole Bartusiak) is snatched by Koster (Sean Bean), a criminal with a talent for high-tech surveillance. Conrad learns that the kidnapper is desperate for a critical piece of information known only to Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy), one of his catatonic pro bono patients. While his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) remains at home, bedridden due to a broken leg, Conrad races to unlock the secret stored in Elisabeth's fractured mind, while a New York City detective (Jennifer Esposito) inches closer to discovering the Conrads' dilemma. Don't Say a Word co-stars Oliver Platt and Guy Torry and is directed by Gary Fleder, who follows up his suspense smash Kiss the Girls (1997). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Known more for his dark, psychological crime thrillers Primal Fear (1996) and Fallen (1998), director Gregory Hoblit surprisingly created this Frank Capra-meets-Rod Serling-style fantasy that mixes several genres of storytelling into a likable stew. James Caviezel stars as John Sullivan, a New York police detective who has never recovered from the death of his father Frank (Dennis Quaid), a firefighter who died heroically when John was a boy. Experimenting with his dad's beloved ham radio one summer night, extreme sunspot activity allows John to contact Frank 30 years in the past. Since he's able to warn Frank away from danger, his father's death never occurs. Then the unthinkable happens: John's altered future is one in which his mother Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) has been murdered by a serial killer. Now John in the present and Frank in the past must try to solve the riddle of the killer's identity and change the time line again. Frequency was written by Toby Emmerich, the brother of actor Noah Emmerich, who appears in a supporting role created specifically for him. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This four-hour miniseries is a sequel to 1997's top-rated miniseries, The Last Don,based on the novel by Mario Puzo of The Godfather fame, but several critics noted that The Last Don II is unintentionally funny. After Don Clericuzio (Danny Aiello, the pivotal figure in the first series) dies from old age, Clericuzio's enemies come out of the woodwork with bullets and bombs. Clericuzio's nephew Cross De Lena (Jason Gedrick) is peacefully enjoying life in Paris with his attractive wife and his autistic stepdaughter; when the wife has a mail bomb go off in her face, it marks the unleashing of a new wave of violence. Rose Marie Clericuzio (Kirstie Alley), who still bemoans the killing of her son (during the first series), encounters romantic problems with Father Luca Tonarini (Jason Isaacs). With teacher and nanny Josie Cirolia (Patsy Kensit) caring for Cross' autistic stepdaughter, it's not long before the widower and the nanny take an interest in each other. But when will he figure out that she's an FBI agent? Cross's sister is Hollywood studio exec Claudia (Michelle Rene Thomas); she's married to muscular, Austrian-accented actor Dirk (Andrew Jackson), star of an action movie titled The Fumigator. Premiered May 3, 1998 on CBS. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi