Richard Kuss Movies
- 1993
- R
Though emotionally estranged, a father and daughter team of Los Angeles police detectives must work together to stop a serial killer. Along the way, the two find themselves forced to deal with a number of painful secrets from their past. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
The renovation of a Manhattan brownstone yields the skeletal remains of a young boy. Further investigation indicates that the unfortunate youngster disappeared without a trace in 1960. The case causes the boy's childhood friend Julie Atkinson (Mary Joan Negro) to suffer the anguish of reliving some horrible, long-repressed memories. This episode marked a reunion between series co-star Michael Moriarty and director Ed Sherin, who'd previously collaborated on Moriarty's debut film, My Old Man's Place (1972). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Julian Sands oozes maleficence as a warlock of the 1600s cast forth to 1980s Los Angeles, where he continues to work his deviltry. The story begins in 1691 Boston when a warlock is condemned to die. Calling for Satan's help, the warlock is sent forward in time to contemporary Los Angeles, where he comes crashing through the window of Kassandra (Lori Singer) and her roommate Chas (Kevin O' Brien), who think that the warlock is a LA drunk and let him stay the night to sleep it off. The next day, the warlock brutally murders Chas and then locates a spiritualist (Mary Woronov) who, possessed by the devil, tells the warlock that he must find the three parts of the Grand Grimoire, the witches' bible that contains the secret name of God. Meanwhile, Kassandra, grieving over the death of Chas, comes upon Giles Redferne (Richard E. Grant), a warlock hunter from the 16th century, sent into the future to find the warlock. While Giles is busily putting together a "witch-compass" to track the warlock, Kassandra calls the police and has him arrested. But then the warlock returns and puts a curse on Kassandra. She blacks out, only to awaken the next morning to discover that she has aged twenty years. Realizing she has put the wrong representative from the 16th century in jail, she bails out Giles and they both go in search of the warlock. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard E. Grant, Julian Sands, (more)
- 1988
Cop Killers was one of five Police Story specials, telecast in the fall of 1988. These "new" 2-hour specials were actually rewrites of scripts from the original Police Story series of 1973-80; there was an industry strike going on in '88, and networks needed material in a hurry. Ken Olin stars in Cop Killers as a police officer who feels unworthy of his medal of valor. He acted "correctly" during a shootout, but his partner was killed in the crossfire. Olin's guilt gradually begins to take a toll on his marriage to Patricia Wettig (the real-life Mrs. Ken Olin). Police Story: Cop Killers was first telecast October 29, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
Gena Rowlands won an Emmy for her towering portrayal of former first lady Betty Ford. After surviving breast cancer, the feisty Ford earns the love and admiration of the entire country. This makes it all the harder for her to keep private her biggest personal battle -- against alcohol and prescription-drug addiction. Josef Sommer and Nan Woods co-star respectively as Gerald and Susan Ford in this sensitive but candid adaptation of Betty Ford's autobiography The Times of My Life. Made for television, The Betty Ford Story was first telecast on March 3, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gena Rowlands, Josef Sommer, (more)
- 1986
Blind Justice is a fact-based TV movie starring Tim Matheson, here made to look "normal" with glasses and mustache. The innocent Matheson is fingered by witnesses as an armed robber/kidnapper/rapist. For the next 14 months, his life is hell. Too much circumstantial evidence surrounds the case, and too much information leaks out to the public; even if Matheson beats the rap, he'll be ruined in his community. Blind Justice was first telecast on March 9, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Matheson, Mimi Kuzyk, (more)
Distinguished by a sharp, witty dialogue between its two cop protagonists, Ray and Danny (Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal), this entertaining crime drama is well worth a visit. Ray and Danny are nearly blown away by super bad guy Julio (Jimmy Smits), and their boss is peeved at them as usual. So the two are given a holiday from their beat in Chicago and travel to the sunny shores of Key West. They like it enough to retire from police work and open a business there. But when the duo returns to the Windy City, Julio is about to pull off a big drug deal and retirement may not be such a good idea. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Hines, Billy Crystal, (more)
- 1984
A group of villains previously defeated by the A-Team pool their savings and hire professional assassin Major Kyle (Ed Lauter) to get rid of the Team once and for all. Kyle's plan is to play upon the well-known weaknesses of the various team members in order to kidnap them one by one--and then to kill them slowly and painfully, while Team leader Hannibal (George Peppard) is forced to watch. Tricia O'Neill repeats her portrayal of Dr. Maggie Sullivan, a character introduced in the first-season A-Team episode "Bad Day at Black Rock". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
Worried about a family of blue jays that has nested in the sign in front of Mel's Diner, Vera (Beth Howland) climbs upward to shelter them from harm. Alas, what goes up generally comes down, and poor Vera is no exception. Seriously injured, she is whisked off to the hospital--where the rest of the diner staff show up to pay their respects, only to mistake another bandaged-up lady for Vera! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link give crime-solving a rest in their script for the made-for-TV sci-fier Prototype. Christopher Plummer plays a curmudgeonly but basically kindly Nobel Prize-winning scientist, who builds an equally kindly (but much handsomer) humanoid named Michael (David Morse). The government-subsidized Plummer has created Michael on behalf of his sponsors, but has second thoughts when he finds out that the government plans to build an army of robot warriors, using Michael as their model. Plummer sneaks into the pentagon and "kidnaps" Michael, triggering a film-length chase. Prototype had its television premiere on December 7, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
One of several 1978 films dealing with the Vietnam War (including Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning Coming Home), Michael Cimino's epic second feature The Deer Hunter was both renowned for its tough portrayal of the war's effect on American working class steel workers and notorious for its ahistorical use of Russian roulette in the Vietnam sequences. Structured in five sections contrasting home and war, the film opens in Clairton, PA, as Mike (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Stan (John Cazale, in his last film) celebrate the wedding of their friend Steve (John Savage) and go on a final deer hunt before the men leave for Vietnam. Mike treats hunting as a test of skill, lecturing Stan about the value of "one shot" deer slaying and brushing off Nick's urgings to appreciate nature's beauty. As Mike ruminates post-hunt, the film cuts to the horror of Vietnam, where the men are captured by Vietcong soldiers who force Mike and Nick to play Russian roulette for the V.C.'s amusement. Mike turns the game to his advantage so they can escape captivity, but the men are permanently scarred by the episode. Steve loses his legs; Nick vanishes in the Saigon Russian roulette parlors. Mike returns alone to Clairton a changed man, as he rejects the killing of the deer hunt and finds solace with Nick's old girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep). Disgusted by the antics of his male cohorts at home, Mike decides to bring Steve back from a veterans' hospital, and he returns to Saigon to find Nick. As Saigon falls, Mike discovers how far gone Nick is; the survivors gather in Clairton for a funeral breakfast, singing an impromptu rendition of "God Bless America." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, John Cazale, (more)
- 1976
This Kojak episode is the second of two pilot films for Salathiel Harris, an unsold TV action series starring Rosey Grier as a two-fisted California bounty hunter. Just as in the first pilot "Bad Dude", Salathiel Harris has arrived in Manhattan in search of a particularly scabrous bail jumper. And just as before, Lt. Kojak (Telly Savalas) is determined to beat Harris to the punch and haul in the fugitive himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Race car driver Ticker Welsh is convinced that the senseless death of his fiancee was caused by an irresponsible colleague, Mickey Arnold. Wanting to get even, he enters Atlanta's Dixie 400 stock-car race. Former NASCAR champion Richard Petty makes a cameo. The race scenes were films at the Atlanta International Raceway. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
