Brion James Movies

A heated affair threatens to bring down skilled Los Angeles private eye Jack Ramsay in this fast-paced action thriller starring Corbin Bernsen and Carrie-Anne Moss. When the body of his lover -- who also happens to be the wife of rising politician Martin Lewis -- is discovered strangled and lifeless, it appears as if Ramsay is being set up to take a fall for the murder. With the police on his back and the head of the spotlight shining ever brighter, Ramsay must race against time to find the true killer if he has any hope of making it through the night alive. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two men meet in a diner on a desert highway--an uptight, reserved motorist (Lance Henriksen) and an overbearing, insistent hitchhiker (Eric Roberts). A dangerous balance results when it becomes clear that one of the two is a serial killer known in the media as "The Hatchet Man," while the other is a fugitive who has robbed a casino. With two capable actors and plenty of tension, it is slowly revealed which one is which. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

In this horror thriller, a psychically super-charged cop uses his unusual gifts to put a permanent end to a cop killer. Highlights include a few hallucination sequences, bad dreams and the trademark of Scanners-related films, an exploding head. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Stars of country music fill out the cast of this made-for-TV western. Kenny Rogers plays a bounty hunter who sets off with his newlywed partner (Travis Tritt) to track down the kidnappers who ran off with Tritt's wife (Laura Harring). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The seemingly heartbroken parents of a murdered child make a sheriff suspicious, in this made-for-television drama. Park Overall and Robby Benson star as The Sims, a couple whose infant daughter is kidnapped and later found dead. By all accounts the Sims appear to be the victims, but when another child in the Sims family is found dead several years later, the local sheriff (Frederick Forrest) becomes suspicious. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

This bargain-basement budgeted sci-fi horror movie pays a kind of tribute to 1930s sci-fi serials such as "King of the Rocket Men." It is set just after the Frog Wars of the preceding film Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988). Following that terrible battle, the Froggie mutants were placed on the special Frogtown Mutant Reservation. The story begins as the leader of Frogtown, Zar abducts Professor Tanzer and forces him to perfect a terrible serum that will turn the Earth's remaining population into croaking, fly-eating amphibians. Zar then sends out an android version of Commander Toady (a character who died in the first film) to bring in some subjects to test. Toady's first catch is the muscle-bound Rocket Ranger Jones who is injected by the lovely Nurse Cloris. To save Jones from a terrible fate, fellow rocketeers send out the courageous Ranger Sam Hell to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in a WW III-decimated 21st-century Los Angeles in which humans compete with cyborgs, this low-budget special-effects laden thriller chronicles the attempts of a heroic fellow to clean up the town and keep the androids from taking over what's left of the planet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

It is October 6, 2022 and humankind is nearly extinct thanks to a massive alien attack. Astronaut Michael Raynor is fleeing the planet in his spacecraft when suddenly a "wormhole" opens up and sucks him into a time warp. He finally makes it back to the ground and finds himself in Washington state in the year 1992. Soon scientists and military personnel descend upon him and his craft. They get the ship, but he escapes and finds himself pursued by the same human-looking aliens who are destroying the world in his own time. Among the invaders is lovely Karen, who poses as a scientist and decides to help Raynor save his planet. To do this, they must keep Neila from becoming president. They do not know that Neila is himself an outworlder (but discerning audience members who can spell things backwards certainly do!) As the action in the past continues, so does the future story as the few remaining humans battle it out with the aliens in futuristic Washington, D.C. Back in the past Neila and his henchmen decide to make sure Raynor is never born and take off after his pregnant mother who is going to bear him later that year. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

At times, Another 48 Hrs. seems less like a sequel to than a parody of the first 48 Hrs., especially when Nick Nolte, repeating his role from the earlier film, begins commenting on the cliched absurdity of the goings on. This time, Nolte risks life, limb and career as he obsessively tries to bring an elusive master criminal known as "The Iceman" to justice. Eddie Murphy, who stole the show in the first 48 Hrs. as the wheeler-dealer convict who becomes Nolte's reluctant partner, is brought into the plotline of the second film when a contract is taken out on his life. The adversarial relationship between Nolte and Murphy, supposedly dissipated by the end of the first film, is revivified in the sequel via a couple of plot devices. Still, Murphy rallies to the occasion, in the process saving Nolte from being thrown off the force. Though not as successful as the first film, Another 48 Hrs. proved that there were still enough Eddie Murphy fans around in 1990 to insure a strong box-office showing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lurid sci-fi actioner a psycho LA police chief has surgeons implant a device into the spines of wounded officers that turns them into lunatic killers who are then assigned to his Scum Quelling Urban Assault Division (SQUAD). After cleaning the streets of slimy crooks, the officers are programmed to destroy themselves. When hard-nosed cop Arliss Ryder is wounded, he too receives the deadly implant, but unlike the others, he and his gal Kristin, a master kickboxer, figure out the plan and work to defeat the villain to save himself and his fellow officers. The film inspired considerable controversy when it first came out because the part of the S&M-loving police chief was played by convicted-conspirator G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame. After the film was completed Liddy refused to promote it to the public and later after the story made the national news withdrew all opposition. This bought the film more time in theaters, before it went to video, than it may have actually deserved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide