Roma Maffia Movies

Season One of the intense crime drama Profiler begins as Bailey Malone (Robert Davi), head of the Atlanta-based Violent Criminal Task Force (VCTF), persuades his former colleague, forensic psychologist Samantha "Sam" Waters (Ally Walker) to come out of retirement and help his organization track down some of America's most heinous (and cleverest) serial killers. Sam possesses the strange ability to "see" through the eyes of both victim and killer at the crime scene, and had once been quite active as an FBI consultant. All this changed when a particularly elusive multiple murderer who called himself Jack of All Trades trumped Ally by murdering her father. Since that time, she has lived in seclusion with her daughter Cloe (played this season by Caitlin Wachs) and her best friend Angel (Erica Gimpel). Even so, Sam agrees to join Bailey's team, which consists of Detectives John Grant (Julian McMahon) and Nathan Brubaker (Michael Whaley), forensic pathologist Grace Alvarez (Romer Maffia), and computer hacker George Fraley (Peter Frechette). As it turns out, Sam's first case with the VCTF agains brings her in contact with Jack of All Trades, who continues to cut a homicidal swath through the country, leaving behind evidence that his ultimate "goal" is Ally herself. In fact, he begins targeting her colleagues, forcing Bailey to set up a trap for Jack using Sam and Grant as bait--a trap that backfires in a near-tragic fashion. Outside of the ubiquitous Jack, Sam tracks down such miscreants as an arsonist called Tony the Wick, a homicidal disciple of I Ching, a pro-eco serial bomber, a latter-day Charlie Manson type, a deranged artist who "arranges" the corpses of victims in the manner of famous paintings, and a vigilante who kills criminals who've evaded capture and then sends tapes of his handiwork to local TV stations. At one point, Sam is kidnapped by an anti-nuclear zealot who intends to kill a lot of people so they'll stop killing a lot of other people! Episodes highlights include "Unsolved Sovreignty", in which Sam is teamed for the first time with her future lover, ATF explosives expert Nick "Coop" Cooper (A Martinez); and "Blue Highways", wherein Bailey's dangerously rebellious 17-year-old daughter Frances (Heather McComb) makes the first of several fractious appearances. The season ends with the two-part cliffhanger "Venom", in which the life of a key member of the VCTF team hangs in the balance, while another team member quits in disgust. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A stranger pulled into a deadly scheme races against time to save his daughter in this thriller. Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is an accountant who comes to L.A. with his ten-year-old daughter Lynn (Courtney Chase) to attend a funeral. On the street, Gene and Lynn are pulled aside by Mr. Smith (Christopher Walken) and Ms. Jones (Roma Maffia), who flash what look like police badges and usher them into a van. Gene soon discovers that he's been kidnapped, and his captors have an unusual demand -- if Gene does not murder Gov. Eleanor Grant (Marsha Mason) within 75 minutes, his daughter will be killed. Gene now has just an hour and a quarter to tip off the authorities, spare Gov. Grant, and find out what Smith and Jones are trying to do, along with saving his daughter's life. He finds a much-needed ally in one-legged shoe-shine man Huey (Charles S. Dutton). Most of the action in Nick of Time occurs in "real time," meaning that the passage of time on screen matches that of real life, as the frequent shots of clocks and watches will attest. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Ron Howard's drama follows a beleaguered reporter during a hectic 24 hours at a New York City tabloid. Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, a metro editor for the struggling New York Sun. Hackett is being wooed by the Sentinel, a more upscale paper, but he's addicted to the adrenaline-stimulating, breakneck pace of the Sun's newsroom, much to the consternation of his pregnant wife Martha (Marisa Tomei. Hackett is currently pursuing a story of two minority youths who have been arrested for the murders of two men. He learns that the police think that the killings may be a mob hit. In the court of public opinion, however, the innocent suspects are being judged as guilty, and the police may bow to the pressure. As Hackett and his staff desperately work all the story's angles to find the truth, several other dramas unfold. Top editor Bernie (Robert Duvall) learns that he has prostate cancer, and tough publisher Alicia (Glenn Close) wonders if her lack of popularity is due to her cost-cutting, her personality, or the fact that she's a woman. In their only collaboration, screenwriter David Koepp co-wrote the script with his brother Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Internal Affairs is the second TV-movie based on the works of detective novelist William Bayer. Richard Crenna, who first played NYPD detective Richard Janek in 1985's Doubletake, is back, now as a functionary of Internal Affairs. He has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman who may have been the victim of a kinky serial killer who'd flourished in Saigon 12 years earlier. Meanwhile, Janek's ex-boss (Lee Richardson), now a jailbird, gives the Janek the tip that several cops may be illegally selling guns. Internal Affairs was originally telecast in two parts in November of 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi