David Hewlett Movies
Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1992
- PG13
An unfunny comedy that ribs film noir conventions, Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel is set at a second-rate motel in 1950s Anaheim that is run by a fussy and nosy manager (Paul Bartel, invoking the ghost of Billy De Wolfe). Checking into the hotel is toy salesman Chester DeSoto (Whip Hubley) and his sultry wife Bridey (Sherilyn Fenn), who likes to take midnight swims in the motel swimming pool in sexy black negligees. She seduces local lady-killer Augie March (David Johansen), who happens to be blackmailing her husband concerning his past Communist Party associations. While Bridey is giving the once-over to Augie, Chester is busy himself -- hiring a screwball private detective by the name of Deadpan Winchester (David Hewlett) to spy on his wife. With the hotel manager peeking behind the curtains, one person turns up dead, and those left attempt to link Deadpan Winchester to the murder. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sherilyn Fenn, Whip Hubley, (more)
- 1992
In this made-for-TV drama, a teenage girl named Sarah (Kathleen Robertson) is flying home to see her parents when she falls ill. While Sarah is convinced that she has simply come down with a bad cold, when she keels over and dies while crossing a street, an autopsy reveals that Sarah had in fact contracted the pneumonic plague. Dr. Nora Hart (Kate Jackson), the hospital's authority on epidemics and highly contagious diseases, now must track down as many people as possible who came in contact with the girl before the plague begins to spread -- including Calvin Phillips (Howard Hessman), a congressman Sarah met on her flight. Based on the novel The Black Death by Gweneth Cravens and John C. Marr, Quiet Killer also stars Jerry Orbach, Luis Guzman, and Al Waxman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Based on a Solzhenitsyn book, this is the story of a Moscow official in Stalinist Russia whose future freedom depends on a technological break-through. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- R
Picking up where Scanners left off, this sequel has good and evil scanners combatting when a crooked politician schemes to gain control of a major city. Scanners are people who, because their mothers had taken a certain drug during pregnancy, have acquired telepathic powers. Here, a "bad-guy" scanner escapes from a mental center and is hired by the politician to use his powers to gain control of others' minds, and then, their actions. A "good-guy" scanner teams with his sister to thwart these plans. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hewlett, Deborah Raffin, (more)
- 1991
- R
The great achievement of The Boys of St. Vincent is not that it deals with the controversial subject of pedophilia among Catholic clergy, but that it deals with that subject so honestly, without resorting to melodramatics. At the core of this powerful film lies Henry Czerny's searing performance as Brother Peter Lavin. Czerny deftly shows in the film's first half how Lavin used the double-edged sword of adult and religious authority to intimidate his charges. And in the second half, when Lavin is confronted with the monstrousness of his crimes, Czerny's ability to construct a plausible set of denials (if you had seen only this part of the film, you might be tempted to believe him) lifts the film above a simple case study. Lavin's character, a man who translated his own troubled childhood into pain and affliction for others, is one of the most fascinating psychological studies in contemporary film. Co-writer and director John N. Smith is also to be praised for tamping down the urge to embroider this story with unnecessary flourishes. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Czerny, Johnny Morina, (more)
In this comedy from writer-director John Boorman, wealthy real estate mogul Stewart McBain (Dabney Coleman) owns a demolition firm which specializes in blowing up old buildings to make way for upscale new ones. When neighbors protest his plans to raze a dilapidated old building to make way for a new Brooklyn subdivision, television crews film the confrontation, and McBain comes off like a fool. His three spoiled children ridicule him. Tired of their carping, McBain gives them each $750 and drops them off at the old building, known as the Dutch House. Daphne (Uma Thurman), Chloe (Suzy Amis) and Jimmy (David Hewlett) are at first completely lost, because they have no idea how to live in the real world. As McBain and his wife Jean (Joanna Cassidy) monitor their children's progress, the three youngsters learn to get along with the neighborhood people and eventually set up a commune of sorts, into which they invite their friends and various homeless people. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dabney Coleman, Uma Thurman, (more)
- 1989
A wealthy woman (Robin Givens) is stalked by her ex-boyfriend, who escaped from an asylum. He traps her in her penthouse. ~ All Movie Guide
An obscure and offbeat novel by Andrew Neiderman comes to life as this strange, disturbing, but fairly compelling psychological thriller. The title refers to a life-sized medical dummy (the name is short for Pinocchio) through which strait-laced physician and would-be ventriloquist Doctor Linden (Terry O'Quinn) communicates with his children, Leon (David Hewlett) and Ursula (Cyndy Preston). Although Pin seems to have served a useful purpose by providing the emotionally distant Linden with a means of opening up to his family, the mannequin's importance gradually becomes a decidedly unhealthy influence for Leon, whose latent psychosis emerges fully after his father's death and compels him to "adopt" Pin as a member of the household. As Ursula, now a beautiful woman, begins to enjoy a relatively happy love life, Leon is consumed with jealousy and, goaded by the 'Pin' aspect of his personality, turns to murder as release. In its depiction of a psychotic who loses his will to an increasingly lifelike dummy, Pin is remarkably similar in theme to Richard Attenborough's Magic (which itself owed a debt to films like The Great Gabbo). Though it breaks no new ground in this respect, this quirky horror film does present an irresistibly eerie charm (thanks in large part to Hewlett's fine performance) and generates a decent amount of suspense, building to a chilling, if not entirely surprising, climax. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hewlett, Cyndy Preston, (more)
A naive taxi driver helps a porno star escape from several pursuing crooks, and finds out that she has evidence on tape linking her employers to a series of snuff films. They must work together to bring the producers to justice before being killed themselves. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Galati, Cyndy Preston, (more)
