John Gatins Movies

In Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight, alcoholic pilot Whip Whittaker (Denzel Washington) does a miraculous job crash-landing a plane that has suffered a severe mechanical breakdown in midair, however the mandated investigation into the incident will inevitably lead to the discovery that he was flying the plane while drunk and on cocaine. As he attempts to sober up, Whip befriends a fellow addict he meets during his post-accident stay in the hospital. Soon he fails in his attempts to white-knuckle himself to sobriety, and with the help of his favorite drug-dealer (John Goodman) and his lawyer (Don Cheadle), Whip must prepare to testify about what happened on that fateful flight. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A retired pugilist transitions to the business side of the ropes after human boxers are replaced by robotic ones in director Shawn Levy's feature-length adaptation of the Twilight Zone episode "Steel." Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was a true contender when the sport of boxing was changed forever. Now, instead of humans duking it out for the masses, huge, powerful steel robots trade blows in the ring. As a result, former gladiator Charlie has been forced into the role of two-bit promoter, piecing together cut-rate fighting bots from scrap metal as he makes the rounds on the underground boxing circuit. Just when it seems that Charlie has sunken to the nadir of his career, his estranged 11 year old son, Max (Dakota Goyo), offers him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at a comeback by constructing and training a true champion. Now the stakes are higher than ever before, and Charlie is about to get a second chance at leaving an indelible mark on the sport he once dedicated his life to. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A meek and lovable milquetoast married to an overbearing, overweight tyrant finds his life turned upside down when he meets the woman of his dreams in this romantic comedy starring Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Eddie Griffin. His entire life, Norbit (Murphy) has been picked on and put down, and after being bullied into marrying the most obnoxious woman in town (also Murphy) it appears as if that's the way things will remain until the day he dies. Upon meeting the one woman who seems to accept him for who he is, Norbit is instilled with a newfound sense of hope for the future. In order to find true happiness, however, Norbit will first have to gather the courage to stand up to his monstrous spouse once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The true-life story of a coach who tries to teach his players that there's more to life than basketball is brought to the screen in this sports drama. Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) was once a star player on the Richmond High School basketball team in Richmond, CA, and years later, after establishing himself in publishing and marketing, he returns to the school and to the team as the new basketball coach. Carter quickly sees that his work is cut out for him -- the team is having an awful season, and their fights off the court are more decisive than their play on the court. While Carter wants to make the Richmond cagers into a winning team, he also wants a lot more -- to teach the boys to respect themselves and one another, and that they must excel in the classroom as well as in the gymnasium. Under Carter's guidance, the team turns their losing season around, with the state title a genuine possibility. However, when Carter learns that a number of his players have let their grade point averages slip below 2.3, as mandated in a contract he entered into with the students, he decides to lock the team out of the gym and send them into study hall until their marks improve. Carter's plan quickly becomes a subject of controversy among parents and team boosters, and their objections are soon picked up by the local news media, many of whom are not sympathetic to Carter's belief that his players must have goals beyond college ball or the NBA. Coach Carter also features Rob Brown and Rick Gonzalez as members of the team, and R&B diva Ashanti in her film debut as the girlfriend of one of Carter's players. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Television actor-turned-director Brian Robbins follows up Varsity Blues (1999) and Ready to Rumble (2000) with another sports comedy. Keanu Reeves stars as Conor O'Neill, an underachiever and inveterate sports gambler who needs a bailout loan from a friend to pay off his mounting debt. As a condition for receiving the necessary funds, Conor is saddled with coaching a corporate-sponsored Little League baseball team for underprivileged youth in Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green housing project. Reluctant at first, Conor slowly begins to enjoy his new authority role, especially when he makes the acquaintance of his players' attractive teacher, Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane). Based on the real-life chronicle Hardball: A Season in the Projects by Outside magazine editor Daniel Coyle, Hardball also stars D.B. Sweeney and Mike McGlone. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This long-delayed science fiction thriller from director Gary Fleder was actually filmed prior to his box-office hit Don't Say a Word (2001), which preceded it in theaters by several months. Based on a 1953 short story by Philip K. Dick, the film shares that schizophrenic author's long-running obsessions with concealed identity and humanity's potential inferiority to alternative life forms. Gary Sinise stars as Spencer John Olham, a respected government scientist in the year 2079 trying to devise a secret weapon that will help his fellow humans win a decade-long war with invading aliens that are cloning human subjects and using the replicas as walking time bombs. Suddenly, Olham is accused of being an alien spy and a nationwide manhunt to capture him ensues. With even his doctor wife (Madeleine Stowe) unsure that she can trust him, Olham must uncover the truth on his own, even as he's relentlessly pursued by Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio), a federal agent charged with destroying the clones. Imposter has a complicated history, originally produced in early 2000 as a 30-minute short to be included in an anthology entitled "The Light Years Trilogy," a project that never got off the ground. So impressed was Dimension Films with the completed piece, however, that the footage was incorporated into a new feature version. That film was then shuffled around the release schedule for more than a year as effects were completed, reshoots were ordered, and the film was recut for a PG-13 rating instead of its original R. The R-rated "director's cut" was later released on DVD. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

We've all heard of the luck of the Irish, but no one feels very lucky in Las Vegas when the Leprechaun visits Sin City in this, the third feature in the Leprechaun franchise. A Las Vegas pawnbroker buys a statue of a leprechaun from a hobo, but then makes the mistake of taking the gold medal hanging around the statue's neck. Turns out it's no statue after all, and taking away the charmed necklace brings the leprechaun back to life. The mean-spirited little man (played, once again, by Warwick Davis) kills the pawnbroker and sets out to find his pot of gold. However, he forgets that he's left behind a magic coin and when he returns to get it, he discovers it's gone, having been taken by a college student named Scott (John Gatins) who happened upon the shop. While the coin brings a bit of good luck to Scott, things change when he discovers he has a murderous leprechaun on his trail. Leprechaun 3's Las Vegas adventure was followed a year later by the even more unlikely Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi