Fred Henderson Movies
- 1997
This fact-based TV movie stars John Ritter as Ed Chandler, whose life is torn asunder when his daughter Missy (Anna Chlumsky) is diagnosed with cancer. The nature of Missy's illness obliges Ed to spend many hours away from his job as a car salesman to commiserate with her daughter's doctors at the hospital. Then one day, Ed shows up at work to be coldly informed that he has been fired--and there is no one to whom he can go to plead his case. The plight of the Chandler family ultimately leads to the creation of the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows persons up to six weeks' leave from their jobs when their family members are suffering from serious illnesses. Telecast by CBS on January 21, 1997, Child's Wish (cable title: Fighting for Justice made headlines when it first aired because of the appearance of President Bill Clinton in the final scene--the first time that a sitting President ever starred as "himself" in a dramatic film (as well as the first such scene to be lensed on location in the Oval Office!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
In this most recent spin on a familiar suspense-movie plot device, the 6-year-old son of wealthy Seattle industrialist Dan Carlin (Stephen Elliott) is kidnapped by a disgruntled ex-employee. Innocently unaware of his plight, the captive boy is locked in a room with his toy teddy bear, which has been booby-trapped with a time bomb. Tension mounts when the kidnapper is accidentally killed, leaving Carlin and a dedicated police detective (Karen Sillas) with less than 24 hours to locate both boy and bomb. As Time Runs Out made its CBS network debut on October 5, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stephen Collins, Karen Sillas, (more)
Laurence Fishburne and Ellen Barkin star in this complex tale of former C.I.A. agents who now specialize in freelance espionage. As the film opens, Nelson Crowe (Fishburne) is being interviewed for a position with the Grimes Organization, which focuses on industrial espionage. He is hired by Margaret Wells (Barkin), who then takes Crowe to her boss, Grimes (Frank Langella). Grimes and Wells visit a man named Walter Curl (Spalding Gray) to tell him that they can bribe a state judge so that Curl's company doesn't have to pay a $25 million fine for the toxic poisoning of some children. The judge himself (David Ogden Stiers) is deep in gambling debts. Meanwhile, Wells aligns herself with Crowe and tries to convince him that the two of them could do away with Grimes and take over his entire organization. The plot thickens from there, with several surprises. The first-time original screenplay is by famous crime writer Ross Thomas, ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ellen Barkin, Susan Wooldridge, (more)
Death lurks, and two teenage girls try to figure out where he's heading, in this sequel to the unexpected teen horror hit Final Destination. As Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the only surviving passenger of the ill-fated Flight 180, waits in a mental institution, certain Death will claim her, Kim (A.J. Cook), who has begun to display precognitive powers, is driving along the highway when she sees a terrible accident in which several cars crash into a logging truck. Moments later, the horrible vision is gone, but Kim is certain she saw an accident that was supposed to happen but didn't...and now Death will track down the souls he meant to take that day who slipped through his fingers. A police officer, Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), believes there's a germ of truth in Kim's story, and teams her up with Clear in hopes that together they can help prevent Death from snuffing out any more of the people involves in the accident that wasn't. Tony Todd also returns from the first film as Mr. Bludworth. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ali Larter, A.J. Cook, (more)
- 1995
The made-for-TV Falling From the Sky: Flight 174 was based on a true story that occurred high over Canada in July of 1983. While en route from Montreal to Edmonton, a brand-new Boeing 767 runs out of fuel in mid-flight. With only a cursory knowledge of the jet's inner works, the crew is forced to desperately improvise a means of rescuing the passengers by gliding the aircraft to a runway in Winnipeg--35 miles away. Although the actual story has enough inherent drama for five TV movies, the producers felt the necessity to add a few overly melodramatic touches to heighten the suspense; also, aviation enthusiasts weren't too happy with the script's inaccuracies, nor were movie purists impressed by the surprisingly shoddy computer enhanced special effects. Nonetheless, the film boasts excellent performances, especially from William Devine as Captain Bob Pearson. First broadcast by ABC on February 20, 1995, Falling From the Sky was adapted from William and Marilyn Hoffer's book Freefall, and has since been retitled Freefall: Flight 174 for cable-TV play. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Devane, Shelley Hack, (more)
- 1989
- R
- Add Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan to Queue Add Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan to top of Queue
The worst in a string of increasingly pointless sequels to Sean S. Cunningham's crude slasher hit, this installment provided clear evidence that the "slasher" subgenre, already creatively dead, was no longer financially viable. This time around, unstoppable supernatural thug Jason Voorhees -- imprisoned at the bottom of a lake by his telekinetic foe Tina in the previous film -- is reanimated yet again after being goosed by an underwater electrical cable, freeing him to stow away aboard a shipload of standard-issue obnoxious teenagers en route to Manhattan. The title ultimately proves a bit of a cheat, since the majority of Jason's homicidal hijinks take place aboard the ship until the film's final reel, during which he pursues a handful of survivors through the streets of the Big Apple. Thanks to heavy MPAA cuts, the mayhem is more subdued here than in any other films of the series -- splatter fans primed by the previous chapters' copious bloodletting will be left high and dry. Despite a very amusing "teaser" trailer that suggested that the film might be a semi-parody, writer/director Rob Hedden and company play things tediously straight. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, (more)
- 1993
- R
Corey Haim, the crown prince of direct-to-video films, stars in Just One of the Girls. Haim plays a teen-aged musician who is constantly being bullied. To escape his tormentors, he disguises himself as a girl. Surprise of surprises, Haim finds that he really enjoys his new identity, and decides to remain female for a little while longer just to see what develops. Also released as Anything for Love. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Sidney Poitier makes his long-overdue return to films in the 1988 thriller Shoot to Kill. Poitier plays an FBI agent, on the trail of an elusive killer. Reluctantly teamed with tracker Tom Berenger, the citified Poitier braves the wilds of the Pacific Northwest in search of his quarry. For Berenger, the pursuit is personal; the killer, whose identity is not immediately revealed, has joined a hunting party being guided through the country by the tracker's girlfriend Kirstie Alley. Though only bearing the slightest resemblance to Real Life (you'll love the scene between lifelong city-dweller Poitier and a huge grizzly bear), Shoot to Kill delivers the goods in the suspense department. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, (more)
- 1999
A cosmic flare send the Stargate thirty years back in time. Landing in a top-secret military facility, the SG-1 team must find the Stargate in order to return to 1999. They are aided by a young lieutenant (Aaron Pearl) who bears a strange likeness to Stargate Project head General Hammond (Don Davis). And along the way, the "aliens" are befriended by Michael (Alex Zahara) and Jenny (Amber Rothwell), a pair of Woodstock-bound hippies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1990
- Add The Death of the Incredible Hulk to Queue Add The Death of the Incredible Hulk to top of Queue
Originally made for television, the story concerns David Banner (Bill Bixby), thought to be dead but actually working as a janitor at a laboratory. There, he hopes to cure himself of the monster lurking inside. However, a group of terrorists are interested in the awesome power of the Hulk. ~ John Bush, Rovi
Chuck Norris stars in this derivative action film (directed by his brother, Aaron Norris) which bears more than a passing similarity to Steven Seagal's Marked for Death. Norris plays Cliff Garret, a Seattle cop who is mortally wounded in a drug bust. Garret's condition is grave but he manages to pull through. However, the Seattle police have plans for him and put out the word that Garret has died. When Garret regains his strength, he is given a new identity as hit man Danny Grogan and is assigned to go undercover and infiltrate the crime family of Marco Luganni (Al Waxman). "Grogan" must bring both Luganni and rival gang-lord Andre Lacombe (Marcel Sabourin) into police custody. But his past comes back to haunt him in the person of Ronny Delany (Michael Parks), a goon from Grogan's Garret days, who threatens to blow his cover. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Michael Parks, (more)
Two top CIA spies (Star Trek's Chris Pine and Inception's Tom Hardy) find their enduring friendship put to the ultimate test when they engage in an all-out war to win the affections of a beautiful woman (Reese Witherspoon). Chelsea Handler and Til Schweiger co-star in a comedy co-written by Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes) and Timothy Dowling (Role Models) and directed by McG (Charlie's Angels, Terminator Salvation). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, (more)
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