Steve Harris Movies
With his bald pate and imposing frame -- the press once listed him as 6' tall and 215 pounds -- actor Steve Harris found it relatively easy to usher in a threatening and dominating screen presence when necessary, so it was scarcely surprising that he often found himself cast as heavies on both sides of the law in films such as Street Hunter (1990), The Mod Squad (1999), and The Skulls. Harris escaped from the confines of that typecast, however (and netted a substantial amount of critical attention) with two roles: that of mythical heavyweight Sonny Liston in the 2000 telemovie Muhammad Ali: King of the World, directed by John Sacret Young, and that of defense attorney Eugene Young on the ABC legal drama series The Practice (beginning in 1997). The smashing success of that program opened up many doors for the actor, including roles in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller Minority Report (2002) and the urban seriocomedy Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005). With the grisly horror outing Quarantine (2008) and the Renny Harlin-directed actioner 12 Rounds (2009), it seemed that Harris' career had come full circle.A native of the Chicago suburb of Westchester, IL, Harris grew up as the son of a homemaker and a bus driver. He initially embarked on a promising football career, with the position of linebacker at Northern Illinois University, but torn ligaments in his ankles made it impossible for him to continue, and he instead hearkened off to the stage, establishing his dramatic roots behind the footlights with roles in regional productions of Julius Caesar and Macbeth. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
WWE star John Cena headlines his sophomore action picture as a police officer whose wife is kidnapped in New Orleans. Daniel Kunka provides the script, with Deep Blue Sea's Renny Harlin handling the directing duties for the 20-million-dollar Fox Atomic/WWE Films production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cena, Steve Harris, (more)
- 1998
The lawyers are forced to consult another law firm when they encounter a murder case. ~ TV Guide, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Calista Flockhart, Courtney Thorne-Smith, (more)
A man looking for a woman just like himself ends up with someone quite different in this farcical comedy. Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) is a lawyer who is having trouble getting his life back on track after his wife, Kate (Jean Smart), divorces him; he's also adjusting to his new status as a single father. Looking for companionship, Peter tries an internet dating site and virtually meets "lawyer-girl," an attractive and single fellow attorney. Peter makes a date with her, but the woman who arrives at his door turns out to be Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah), who not only isn't a lawyer, she turns out to be an escaped convict. Charlene is also a brash and brassy African-American, while Peter is perhaps the most tightly wound white guy in L.A. Charlene explains to Peter that she's strung him along because she's innocent of the crime for which she was convicted, and she needs a top-notch attorney to help prove her case. Peter isn't the least bit interested at first, but Charlene isn't the sort of woman to take "no" for an answer, and in time she wears him down and agrees to help. As Charlene moves into Peter's home, she helps him to loosen up and unleash his inner groove, which quite surprises Kate, and her down-to-earth advice comes in handy for Peter's son and daughter. But Charlene may end up going too far when Peter is asked to entertain Mrs. Arness (Joan Plowright), a wealthy woman looking for a new law firm. Bringing Down the House also features Eugene Levy as Howie, one of Peter's friends who takes a keen interest in Charlene, and Betty White as one of Peter's neighbors. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, (more)
Death & Texas mixes humor and drama in order to tell the story of a football player who ends up on death row. However, when his team begins to lose without him there is a movement to get him released. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Durning, Steve Harris, (more)
- 2006
Apparently inspired by the success of the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11 and its sequels, the NBC series Heist spent its entire first season following a gang of clever and charismatic criminals as they prepared to rob three Rodeo Drive jewelers simultaneously on the eve of the annual Academy Awards ceremony. Dougray Scott played ringleader Mickey O'Neil, who engaged the series of a team of "specialists" -- chief among them Lola (Marika Dominczyk) and Ricky (David Walton) -- to carry out his elaborate scheme. As O'Neill's team pulled off a series of smaller robberies to finance the big caper, police detective Amy Sykes (Michele Hicks) began to dog their trail, determined to gather enough evidence to throw the gang into the clink before anything else was stolen. Alas, Amy was hampered not only by her squabbling partners, Tyrese Evans (Reno Wilson) and Billy O'Brien (Billy Gardell), but also by the fact that she had fallen in love with O'Neill. Others in the cast included Steve Harris as James Johnson, O'Neill's best friend/severest critic/sounding board, and Seymour Cassel as veteran career criminal Pops. To boost its initial ratings, Heist was unveiled by NBC on March 22, 2006, in the Wednesday-night time slot usually reserved for the league-leading Law & Order. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dougray Scott, Michele Hicks, (more)
- 1993
Originally telecast in the prime time slot following the 1993 Super Bowl, episode one of Homicide: Life on the Street wastes no time getting started, introducing the viewer to a myriad of characters and no fewer than three murder cases. Newly arrived at the Baltimore PD homicide division from the mayor's office, rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is assigned by Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) to investigate a brutal strangulation. Bayliss is teamed with Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), the division's prickly lone wolf who balks at working with a partner. Other cases on the "board" involve a woman who has evidently murdered several husbands for the insurance, an assignment given to detectives Medrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito); the hit-and-run killing of Jenny Goode, a three-month-old case reopened by detectives Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty) and John Munch (Richard Belzer); and a fourth murder, one which Sgt. Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) would rather handle on her own so as not to jeopardize her winning "cases solved" streak, but one for which Howard is reluctantly teamed with Detective Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin). Barry Levinson won an Emmy award for his direction of this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, (more)
- 1995
The detectives spring into action when a 12-year-old is killed in a bombing at a renovation site. As usual, there is a plethora of suspects, but Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth) pay special attention to antagonistic contractor Arthur "Buzz" Palley (Robert John Burke). Either Palley is the guilty party, or someone hated the man so much that they were willing to commit murder. The key to the solution is a taped telephone conversation, which Assistant D.A. McCoy (Sam Waterston) brings into play even though it has already been ruled as inadmissible evidence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
The father of celebrated baseball star Pat Williams (Malik Yoba) is murdered. Following the trail of clues, detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth) determine that the killing was tied in with gambling debts and not-so-veiled threats against the dead man's relatives. All roads eventually lead to big-time bookie "Papa Doc" Doniel (Ray Aranha) -- but that's hardly the end of the story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on a short story by the late Philip K. Dick, this science fiction-thriller reflects the writer's familiar preoccupation with themes of concealed identity and mind control. Tom Cruise stars as John Anderton, a Washington, D.C. detective in the year 2054. Anderton works for "Precrime," a special unit of the police department that arrests murderers before they have committed the actual crime. Precrime bases its work on the visions of three psychics or "precogs" whose prophecies of future events are never in error. When Anderton discovers that he has been identified as the future killer of a man he's never met, he is forced to become a fugitive from his own colleagues as he tries to uncover the mystery of the victim-to-be's identity. When he kidnaps Agatha (Samantha Morton), one of the precogs, he begins to formulate a theory about a possible frame-up from within his own department. Directed by Steven Spielberg, who hired a team of futurists to devise the film's numerous technologically advanced gadgets, Minority Report co-stars Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow, and Neal McDonough. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, (more)
- 2000
It is just possible that the made-for-TV biopic Muhammad Ali: King of the World was hastily pieced together to capitalize on the popular theatrical documentary When We Were Kings and the publicity attending the upcoming Will Smith movie vehicle Ali. Actually, the title of the TV film was something of a misnomer, since the story covers the formative days of Ali's career and fame, when he was still fighting under his given name Cassius Clay. Played by Terrence DaShon Howard, the young Clay slugs his way from poverty-stricken obscurity to the 1960 Olympics, garners both positive and negative publicity with his incessant self-worship and improvised rhymes, and proves that he is more than just talk when he defeats Sonny Liston (Steve Harris) in 1964. It is in fact at this point that the film draws to a close, with a few hints of what is to come manifested in an early meeting between the impressionable Clay and Islamic activist Malcolm X (Gary Dourdan). Based on the bestselling 1998 biography by David Renwick, Muhammad Ali: King of the World debuted January 10, 2000, on ABC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terrence Howard, Gary Dourdan, (more)
Dashing into the street to prevent her daughter from being hit by truck, widow Joanna Burke (Sherilyn Fenn) is herself struck down an rendered unconscious. She awakens to find herself in a parallel world, where she has no daughter, someone else is living in her house, and there is no "Joanna Burke." Instead, everyone refers to Joanna as Sarah Randolph -- the same Sarah Randolph who has been accused of murdering her own son. Not surprisingly, no one believes Joanna/Sarah when she protests her innocence, except for Dr. Matt Westbrook (Thomas Gibson)...who may himself be trapped in a world he never made. Adapted from the paranormal novel by Margaret Tabor, the made-for-TV Nightmare Street was first telecast by ABC on January 18, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sherilyn Fenn, Rena Sofer, (more)
Jay Hernandez, Jennifer Carpenter, and Johnathon Schaech star in this remake of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's successful, Spanish-language horror film [REC], which follows a television reporter and her cameraman as they fall under a mysterious quarantine issued on an inner-city apartment building. Television reporter Angela Vidal (Carpenter) and her trusty cameraman (Steve Harris) were documenting a night in the life of a Los Angeles fire station crew when the firefighters were summoned to a nearby apartment building to answer a routine 911 call. Upon arriving at the scene, Angela and company discover that police have already arrived to investigate the blood-curdling screams ringing out from one of the apartments. One of the women living in the building has been infected with something terrible, but what? When a few of the other residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape and discover that the CDC has quarantined the building. The officials in charge won't relay any information to those trapped inside the building, and it's impossible to seek information from the outside since telephone, Internet, television, and cell-phone access have all been cut off. By the time the quarantine is lifted, the intrepid cameraman's chilling footage provides the only evidence of the horrors that unfolded on that terrible night. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, (more)
Misha (Nastassja Kinski) and Lexi (Alyson Hannigan) have a falling out with their scummy Russian boyfriends on the eve of a big heist. With the help of Helena (Jennifer Esposito), who despises her nerdy detective husband (Todd Field), the women arrange to rob the casino themselves. Which, of course, cheeses off the blood thirsty Russian ex-boyfriends. To complicate matters, Helena's husband gets in on the heist without her knowing it. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Esposito, Alyson Hannigan, (more)
A judge becomes guilt-ridden after a technicality forces him to release a band of murderous crooks in this crime thriller. As a result of his action, an anguished husband becomes a bloodthirsty vigilante looking for revenge against the crooks because they murdered his wife. This causes the judge to enter the gang's dangerous neighborhood to see that justice is finally done. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman, (more)
- 1990
- R
Steve James stars in this martial-arts adventure. This time he plays former maverick NYC cop and Vietnam vet Logan Blade who currently works as a bounty hunter in pursuit of the potentially dangerous Angel, who is trying to get all of the Big Apple's gangs to unite and become a vicious death squad. To do so, he surreptitiously uses his connections with the NYPD to investigate Angel and find out the identity of the person who is really behind the scheme. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve James, Reb Brown, (more)
- 2004
Another of the many cartoon permutations of the Batman franchise, the half-hour The Batman more or less returned to the basics of the Bob Kane original by depicting its title character as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie in the crimefighting business. Thus, millionaire Bruce Wayne was herein only in his early 20s, and had only recently adopted the cape and cowl of "The Batman" to do battle against the various villains infesting Gotham City. Acting as mentor, trainer and father confessor to the orphaned Bruce was faithful family butler Alfred Pennyworth, while The Batman's ever-growing array of weaponry and state-of-art paraphernalia was activated by Bruce's "Bat-Wave" remote control. Debuting September 1, 2004 on the WB network, The Batman spent its first season having Bruce Wayne/Batman confront several of his traditional antagonists--The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, Catwoman et. al.--for the very time. During season two, our hero underwent his first awkward meetings with his female opposite number Batgirl, aka Barbara Gordon. The series marked the first time since 1992 that someone other than Kevin Conroy supplied the voice of Batman; conversely, the show featured Adam West,who of course had played Batman in the 1966 live-action series of the same name, as the voice of Gotham City's mayor! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rino Romano, Alastair Duncan, (more)
Police Capt. Adam Greer (Dennis Farina) needs some new cops who can go where other cops can't. Greer finds three young people on their way to jail: Lincoln Hayes (Omar Epps), the black one, is up for arson; Pete Cochrane (Giovanni Ribisi), the white one, is up for robbery; and Julie Barnes (Claire Danes), the blonde one, is up for assault. The three are given a choice: go to jail, or become a special undercover unit that will infiltrate L.A.'s underbelly and bring down the drug dealers and parasites that are preying on the young. Their only rules: no badges, no guns, and no turning in other kids. This "mod squad" encounters a major problem when a cache of drugs disappears from the police evidence locker. All clues point to dirty cops, while the cops want to close ranks and blame the new kids. With their first big case, the squad realize they'll receive no help from the L.A.P.D. and must solve it their own way. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Danes, Giovanni Ribisi, (more)
