Denis Arndt Movies

Tom Berenger returns to the role of Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett in the action thriller Sniper 3. This time around, the Marine sniper must hunt down his best friend who has become a dangerous spy and criminal mastermind attempting to manipulate the United States and the world. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Clark Johnson's big-screen adaptation of the 1970s television series S.W.A.T. stars Colin Farrell as Jim Street, a young special weapons and tactics team member who, in the film's opening sequence, is demoted after his hothead partner Jeremy Renner shoots a hostage while trying to kill her captor. In need of good press, the higher-ups call in SWAT expert Hondo Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) to put together an elite team that can bring some luster back to the badge. He chooses Street, veteran T.J. (Josh Charles), and tough single mother Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez). The new team survives a series of tests before hitting the streets. Their first big assignment involves transporting an international criminal (Olivier Martinez) to federal authorities. The criminal had offered a hundred million dollars to anyone who can bust him out. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Suspicion leads to murder when a group of small-town friends commit a horrific act of violence and the resulting tension threatens to reveal the crime to the entire community in first-time director Martin Schenk's dark drama. Bored by the uneventful life in their small town, a group of four friends begin experimenting with small explosives. When the most popular member of the group mysteriously disappears and suspicions fall upon a local boy with a questionable past, the remaining friends decide that he must be responsible and execute a bloody revenge. Shocked by the reappearance of their friend, the teens guiltily scramble to cover up their crime, but the deed has been done and as the truth slowly rises to the surface, the innocence of youth and trust of a community has been wiped away forever. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Essentially an updating of Apollo 13, this taut made-for-TV thriller follows the courageous collaborative effort between NASA's Mission control, a space shuttle crew, and their families after an in-space accident endangers their latest mission and forces them to somehow make it back to Earth for an emergency landing. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mary Tyler Moore is reunited with her onetime sitcom costar Edward Asner in this anything-but-funny TV movie melodrama. While closing down her restaurant late one night, Kathryn Stanfill (Moore) notices a prowler hanging around outside. She quickly summons the police, only to stand by in horror as one of the cops, a loose cannon named Brian Kaleen (Frederick Lehne), brutally and without provocation beats the prowler within an inch of his life. Jack Patkanis (Asner), the police department's Internal Affairs investigator, has long suspected that there have been a few rotten apples like Kaleen on the force, and urges Kathryn to report the beating. Suspended from the force, the psychotic Kaleen methodically mounts a campaign of revenge, using his police-department and political connections to financially destroy Kathryn's husband (Dennis Arndt) and frame her son (Adam Scott) on a murder charge. Payback was first telecast by ABC on February 10, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Popular comedienne Joan Rivers and her real-life daughter Melissa portray themselves in this made-for-television movie about their family's trials and tribulations in the 1980s. After suffering through some public blows to her career, Rivers' husband Edgar (often the butt of her jokes) committed suicide. The film shows how the mother and daughter struggled to save their already troubled relationship in the wake of the devastating death. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

This cold, stylish erotic-thriller grossed over $100 million at the box-office despite vigorous protests at its depiction of gays and women. The shocking opening sequence features a graphic sexual encounter involving a rock-star bound with a white Hermes scarf by an unidentified blond woman. Despite the fact that the scene ends with a bloody icepick murder (horrifyingly realized by makeup artist Rob Bottin), Hermes scarves quickly sold out at stores nationwide. This seeming paradox is at the heart of the film's appeal, as it mixes perverse sexuality and erotic bloodshed in a manner common to European thrillers (director Paul Verhoeven had done it himself in 1979's marvelous De Vierde Man) but mostly taboo in America. The plot concerns Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a successful bisexual mystery writer who may also be a ruthless murderer. Everyone close to Catherine dies, and troubled policeman Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) must find out why. In the process, Nick becomes sexually involved with both Catherine and police psychiatrist Beth Gardner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), while the bodies begin piling up and Catherine turns the cat-and-mouse game around on Nick. Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas -- who was paid $3 million for the script -- keep the tension ratcheted up throughout, even during the frequent sex scenes, which carry a violent edge reminiscent of the Italian thrillers of Dario Argento. The film's most notorious scene, a police interrogation in which Catherine makes drooling idiots out of her captors by revealing that she is not wearing underwear, became a cultural touchstone and was widely imitated and parodied. Sharon Stone, meanwhile, was embarrassed to the point that she claimed Verhoeven had aimed lights on strategic locations without her knowledge. George Dzundza and Dorothy Malone co-star. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

When a self-involved real estate agent is given fifty hours of community service to do by a judge, he becomes the coach for a basketball team of developmentally challenged adults. In trying to teach them, he learns. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

This 2-hour TV movie was originally presented as an installment of The ABC Saturday Mystery Movie in February of 1990. Patrick McGoohan (who also directed) plays a vice presidential candidate whose best friend murders a blackmailing racketeer. With "damage control" foremost in his mind, McGoohan arrange to make the murder look like a suicide. At this point, Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) enters, and it's "cat and mouse" for the remaining 90 minutes. The 1990 Columbo episodes alternated on the Saturday Mystery Movie with three other series: Cristine Cromwell, B.L. Stryker and Kojak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Discharged from Vietnam, John Lithgow and his army buddies have trouble fitting into a hostile home-front society. Rather than endure dirty looks and taunts of "baby killer," Lithgow and his friends wander aimlessly all through the Pacific Northwest. Several years pass, during which time Lithgow's estranged son Ralph Maccio grows to manhood. Finally emerging from his self-imposed exile, Lithgow begins searching for the son he's never known. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide