Nicholas Guilak Movies
When a hard-luck blue-collar worker and his two best friends are mistaken for Army Reservists by a tough-talking Army sergeant, the plane set to fly them to the front lines of Iraq mistakenly drops them in the middle of Mexico to disastrous results in a freewheeling military comedy starring Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, and D.J. Qualls. Larry (the Cable Guy) has lost his job and his woman in the short span of 24 hours. Convinced that some suds and target shooting are just the right remedies for a broken, jobless heart, Larry sets out with his next-door neighbor Bill (Engvall) and their trigger-happy pal Everett (Qualls) in order to blast off some rounds and down some brews. Their relaxing weekend soon takes an unexpected turn, however, when hard-case Army sergeant Kilgrove (Keith David) mistakes the trio as slacking Army reservists and loads them in a plane bound for Fallujah. Subsequently air-dropped over Mexico due to pilot error, the clueless, wannabe war heroes become convinced that they're actually in the Middle East and set out to save a rural village from what they assume to be an insurgent uprising. Though the thankful locals champion the noble but dimwitted trio for their heroism, the celebration is short-lived as ruthless warlord Carlos Santana (Danny Trejo) pays a personal visit to the town with a plan to confront the fearless warriors who dared to challenge his iron-fist rule. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, (more)
A dying man entrusts a straight-shooting police detective with the key to a timeless mystery, thrusting the unsuspecting lawman into a deadly world where everyday objects have an unusual influence over reality as the result of an inexplicable rift in time and space. By all accounts the Sunshine Motel was one indistinguishable from any one of the countless other roadside lodges which dot Route 66. On the typical morning of an otherwise ordinary day, however, the contents in room ten of the Sunshine Motel are suddenly transformed into indestructible objects of immeasurable value. There's a comb with the power to stop time when the user runs it through their hair, and a pair of glasses that can inhibit combustion anywhere in a twenty-yard radius. When Police Detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) is given the most powerful of all the objects - the key to room ten - he is quickly targeted for death by the various cabals that seek to collect the objects; some of the cabals want to collect to objects to achieve their own nefarious means, others simply to prevent them from falling into the wring hands. Things go from bad to worse for Detective Miller when his young daughter disappears in the room and he must race to solve the mystery of this strange phenomenon before he is caught in the crosshairs and his little girl disappears forever. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Krause, Julianna Margulies, (more)
- 2005
Marwan (Arnold Vosloo) has escaped, and CTU discovers that he was working for McLennan-Forster, a big defense contractor, under an assumed name. Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) heads to their offices to find out more. When Paul (James Frain) finds out about the connection, he offers to go with Jack, because he installed the defense firm's security software. At the firm, McLennan (Bill Smitrovich) and his underlings Conlon (Tomas Arana) and Reiss (Albie Selznick) pretend to cooperate, while they're secretly working furiously to destroy their incriminating files before Jack and Paul can uncover them. Because of Paul's expertise at retrieving their data, the crooked businessmen decide to take more drastic measures before it's too late. While the company charges an electromagnetic pulse to destroy all their hardware, Jack investigates the electrical disturbance, leaving Paul to print out a critical encoded file before the device goes off. At CTU, Driscoll (Alberta Watson), shaken by her daughter's suicide, is forced to step down from command. Heller (William Devane) appoints Tony (Carlos Bernard) interim director of CTU Los Angeles, but he also asks Division to send in a replacement as soon as possible. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
The NBC made-for-TV movie Homeland Security endeavors to put a human face on the events leading up to 9/11, and the post-tragedy formation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On the verge of retirement, FBI agent Joe Johnson (Scott Glenn) is brought back to help organize the department, in concert with Admiral McKee (Tom Skerritt). Also on the ground floor of the department is feisty female CIA operative "Jungle Jane" Fulbar (Marisol Nichols) who has enjoyed (if that is the word) a long-standing friendly rivalry with the FBI. The "conscience" character hereabouts is security expert Sol Binder (Leland Orser), who blames the failure to "connect the dots" in the months prior to 9/11 on the lack of cooperation between the two major governmental peacekeeping agencies. Adding a dash of suspense to the otherwise predictable proceedings is the presence of McKee's daughter Melissa (Stephi Lineburg), who, along with her Arab boyfriend, is booked on the ill-fated Flight 29. Likewise enlivening things a bit is the lively-if-traditional villainy of all-purpose terrorist Saif Khan (Nicholas Guilak). The uneven, sometimes incoherent story structure can be attributed to the fact that Homeland Security was the heavily re-edited combination of two pilot episodes for a never-sold TV series. The "finished" product originally aired on April 11, 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Glenn, Tom Skerritt, (more)
- 2003
NBC wasted precious little time in offering up a TV-movie adaptation of one of the first truly uplifting stories of the Iraq War. Saving Jessica Lynch stars Laura Regan as the title character, a 19-year-old army private with the 507th Ordinance Maintence Company. On March 23, 2003, Jessica is captured by Iraqi insurgents after the rest of her platoon is wiped out in a roadside bombing not far from Al Nasiryah. Curiously, Jessica doesn't get all that much screen time: The primary focus is on the rescue efforts mounted by a group of Army Rangers and Navy SEALS, with special emphasis bestowed upon Mohammed Al-Raheif (Nicholas Guilak), the courageous Iraqi man who shielded the captured woman from harm while she lay wounded in an enemy hospital (it should surprise no one that the script is based on Al-Raheif's own book, Because Each Life Is Precious. An inordinate amount of poetic license is taken with the events surrounding Jessica's rescue, with a plethora of ridiculous coincidences and serial-like thrills and chills thrown in to pep up the story. To her credit, the real Jessica Lynch herself neither authorized nor promoted the film, which first aired November 9, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Regan, Nicholas Guilak, (more)
A loyal Mexican drug runner inherits the lucrative business only to find his empire crumbling around him when a lucrative deal goes bad in this tale of crime and betrayal from filmmaker Jose Reyes Bencomo. Mexican drug lord Sr. Acosta (Joe Estevez) has always treated Rafael (Jorge Cordova) as a son, and in turn Rafael has always treated Sr. Acosta's reckless biological son Carlos (Nico Guilak) like a brother. When Sr. Acosta bestows his empire upon Rafael with the understanding that Rafael will do his best to keep Carlos out of trouble, it appears as if Rafael is set for life. The situation takes a turn for the worse, however, when Rafael goes against Sr. Acosta's wishes by allowing Carlos to broker a high-profile drug deal. When the deal goes south and Carlos is hunted by the authorities for a brutal double homicide, the paranoid Rafael attempts to stonewall police by relocating the operation and purging his empire of suspected traitors with a little help from feared assassin Chupacabra (Jorge Soriano). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
