Frederico Lapenda Movies

A young man struggles to overcome a physical handicap in this drama based on a true story. Matt Hamill (Theodore Conley) was born to a single mother (Susan Gibney), who was told her young son was bright, talented, and entirely deaf. Without a father to rely on, young Matt turns to his grandfather Stanley (Raymond J. Barry) as his male role model; Stanley encourages the boy not to allow his deafness to hold him back, and urges him to take up wrestling. Matt shows tremendous promise as a wrestler, but while the sport helps him build confidence and muscle, he isn't sure how to deal with others, particularly girls. After graduating from high school, Matt (now played by Russell Harvard) attends Purdue on a wrestling scholarship, but he's forced to leave school due to poor grades. However, he has an opportunity to redeem himself when his wrestling skills earn him an invite to the Rochester Institute of Technology, a school with a special program for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. For the first time, Matt has peers who are also deaf, and he befriends his roommate Jay (Michael Anthony Spady) and falls for pretty coed Kristi (Shoshannah Stern). But it's a challenge for the lifelong loner to open up to other people and admit his weaknesses, and he also has to learn a new way of communicating by using American Sign Language after spending his life as a lip-reader. The Hammer (aka Hamill) was based on the life of Matt Hamill, a three-time NCAA wrestling champion who has gone on to become a successful mixed-martial-arts competitor. Due to its subject matter and large hearing-impaired audience, the film was exhibited as Open Caption (with onscreen readable text) in theaters. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Snappy dialogue and a noir shadow color this stylish drama about a woman lawyer who crosses to the wrong side of the law. With the help of three criminals she successfully defended, she creates and markets an opium-like drug that will earn her money and get her revenge. ~ Kimber Myers, Rovi

A murderous figure in a demonic mask stalks a woman from her dreams before materializing in the real world to do some bloody damage in director Rolfe Kanefsky's nocturnal tale of night terror. Unsuccessful despite multiple attempts to conceive, Ellen (Blythe Metz) and her husband, Bill (Luciano Szafir), order a mask said to represent the God of Fertility. Unfortunately, their hope for a child is soon snuffed out when a demonic figure sporting the very same mask begins to pursue Ellen in her dreams. Increasingly disturbed by his wife's hysterical paranoia, Bill secures a room for his troubled wife at a nearby mental health facility. When Ellen and Bill's car breaks down in the woods en route to the hospital and the menacing figure from Ellen's nightmares emerges from the darkened trees, a retreat to a nearby cabin where Mia (Tiffany Shepis) is hosting a party with a collection of close friends sets the stage for a blood-soaked murder rampage that may or may not be the doing of a supernaturally charged killer. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Mark Kerr is one of the great champions of a violent and dangerous sport -- "no holds barred fighting" or "mixed martial arts fighting," in which challengers of any fighting sport (boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, karate, and so on) may challenge one another, without observing the official rules of either sport. In "no holds barred" fighting, the two competitors attempt to reduce one another to a bloody pulp, and Kerr is one of the best men in the game. But behind his violent exterior is an intelligent man who has made a decision to pursue a career in a wildly dangerous profession. The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Mark Kerr is a documentary which looks at Kerr's life in and out of the ring, as he attempts to deal with his demons and hold his personal life together while traveling the world and fighting some of the world's most formidable foes. The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Mark Kerr was originally produced for the premium cable network HBO, where it first aired in 2003. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi