Robin Mossley Movies

D.J. Caruso's Two for the Money stars Matthew McConaughey as Brandon Lang, a former college quarterback whose life plans changed when he suffered a career-ending injury. Brandon turns out to have remarkable skill at picking winning football bets. Eventually, he comes to the attention of Walter Abrams (Al Pacino), a very successful business tycoon who runs a giant gambling operation. Walter brings Brandon to New York and introduces him to a glitzy, fast-paced, money-drenched lifestyle that Brandon eagerly soaks up. When Brandon's magic touch begins to falter, Walter starts to turn on his protégé. Soon the two men are attempting to outwit each other, with Walter's wife (Rene Russo) caught in the middle. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

The funny side of sports fandom provides the common element for two stories in this made-for-cable anthology feature. In the first segment, based on a short story by Don Marquis, a golfer (Bob Newhart) looks like he's about to break 100 for the first time, but his partner (Kelsey Grammer) keeps insisting upon following every rule in the book, much to his friend's annoyance. The second story is based on 1968's real-life "Heidi Bowl" incident, in which NBC-TV's broadcast of a hard-fought game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, which seemed likely to determine the AFL championship, was cut off --with 65 seconds left to play and the score at 32-29 -- in order to begin a scheduled showing of a made-for-TV movie based on the classic children's story Heidi. Eugene Levy plays a network control room supervisor, Ellie Harvie appears as a NBC switchboard operator trying to handle the sudden influx of angry calls, Gary Basaraba plays her husband, who is watching the game at home with friends, and John Kapelos is a bookie with a lot of money riding on the game. Fox-TV sports commentator James Brown hosts the two-part film, which was produced for the Showtime premium cable network. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In the year 2020, hardbitten, hard-drinking ex-cop Sam Ryan (William Devane) continues to guiltily grieve over the murder of his father twenty years earlier. With the help of a newly developed time machine, Sam is given the chance to return to 2000 in hopes of preventing his dad's murder. Alas, he arrives a few second too late--and before he quite knows what is happening, he is accused of committing the crime himself. Forced to go on the run, Sam now dedicates himself to clearing his name and tracking down his father's killer, with only a few hours left before the time machine whisks him back to the future. In this pursuit, he is aided and abetted by "himself"--that is, by the younger Sam Ryan, played by Rob Estes. Filmed in Vancouver, the made-for-cable The Man Who Used to Be Me debuted over the Fox Family Channel on July 16, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Partially filmed in Hawaii and Tahiti, And the Sea Will Tell was a two-part TV movie based on a real murder case. A wealthy couple (James Brolin and Deidre Hall) are killed on their yacht off the coast of a secluded South American island called Palmyra. The suspects are a hippyish pair (Hart Bochner and Rachel Ward) whom the rich folks had befriended. It's fairly clear that the hippies were involved in the crime: The question is, did the man do it while the girl looked on helplessly, or was she a willing accomplice? Richard Crenna plays real-life defense attorney Vincent Bugliosi, upon whose book And the Sea Will Tell was based. The first part of this teledrama premiered on February 24, 1991; part two, in which the girl's testimony consumes most of the screen time, was shown on February 26. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Even without observing the opening credits, or noting that the film was first shown on The Disney Sunday Movie, the casual viewer could tell in a minute that Hero in the Family was a Disney production. Cliff De Young plays an American astronaut who, through a freakish occurrence in space, finds that his brain has been transferred to his flight companion, and vice versa. Said companion happens to be a monkey, who is as funny as any monkey has ever been on a Disney TV show (take that as you will). DeYoung's teenage son Christopher Collet endeavors to correct the brain-switch, while attempting to treat both dad and monkey as "normal" characters. You'll laugh till you stop. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this interesting drama set in the 1960s at the height of the Vietnam War, a tough drill sergeant looking for two of his AWOL enlisted men tracks them to the home of an unhappy, manipulative Vancouver couple. Sergeant Ulysses Hawley (Alan Scarfe) is looking for Peter (Jon Bryden) and his companion who have humiliated him in front of an officer. Noel (Dermot Hennelly) has allowed the runaways to stay in his home, while he and Val (Barbara March) use them as examples of courageous rebellion against the Vietnam War. The Sergeant's Gunga Din personality has the effect of making other men remember to be macho in his presence -- an attitude the runaway Peter has never really known. When he comes on the scene, the Sergeant easily takes charge -- and the deserters will be hard-put to evade capture. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi