Pete Postlethwaite Movies

Simon Beaufoy, of The Full Monty, scripted this British romantic comedy-drama. Like The Full Monty, this is also set among the working class of Sheffield, England. With his pal Steve (James Thornton) and others, Ray (Pete Postlethwaite) paints electrical pylons across the Yorkshire countryside, and that work separates him from his wife. When young Australian hitchhiker Gerry (Rachel Griffiths) wants to join the paint crew, Ray signs her up. Despite the age gap, it's not long before they're a twosome. Gerry moves in with Ray, and at one point, they both run about nude in an abandoned nuclear power plant. When Gerry decides to seduce Steve, triangular tensions escalate. The BBC's Sam Miller made his feature directorial debut with this film, shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Steven Spielberg-directed exploration into a long-ago episode in African-American history recounts the trial that followed the 1839 rebellion aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad and captures the complex political maneuverings set in motion by the event. Filmed in New England and Puerto Rico, the 152-minute drama opens with a pre-credit sequence showing Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) and the other Africans in a violent takeover of the Amistad. Captured, they are imprisoned in New England where former slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), viewing the rebels as "freedom fighters," approaches property lawyer Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey), who attempts to prove the Africans were "stolen goods" because they were kidnapped. Running for re-election, President Martin Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) overturns the lower court's decision in favor of the Africans. Former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) is reluctant to become involved, but when the case moves on to the Supreme Court, Adams stirs emotions with a powerful defense. The storyline occasionally cuts away to Spain where the young Queen Isabella (Anna Paquin) plays with dolls; she later debated the Amistad case with seven U.S. presidents. The character portrayed by Morgan Freeman is a fictional composite of several historical figures. For authentic speech, the Africans speak the Mende language, subtitled during some scenes but not others. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Meciej Dejczer directed this German-French-Polish period drama made with English dialogue. British prisoner Gerry, aka Brute (Til Schweiger) is sent away to complete his sentence in a rundown Romanian orphanage run by sinister Sincal (Pete Postlethwaite), who profits by selling children and other evil activities. Crude operations are executed on patients by alcoholic surgeon Dr. Babits (John Hurt), who plays the violin. On the brighter side, a nubile nurse Mara (Polly Walker) is on the staff of this insidious institution, and she enters into an affair with Brute. Shown at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

The classic Shakespearean romantic tragedy is updated by director Baz Luhrmann to a post-modern Verona Beach where swords are merely a brand of gun and bored youths are easily spurred toward violence. Longtime rivals in religion and business, the Montagues and the Capulets share a page from the Jets and Sharks of West Side Story when they form rival gangs. Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) is aloof toward the goings-on of his Montague cousins, but after he realizes that Juliet (Claire Danes) is a Capulet at the end of one very wild party, the enmity between the two clans becomes the root of his angst. He relies heavily -- and with serious consequences -- on his rebel gender-bender of a friend, Mercutio (Harold Perrineau Jr.), and Father (not Friar) Lawrence (Pete Postlethwaite) for protection and support. Romeo is, of course, exiled, and it looks like Juliet will be forced into an arranged marriage with the bland Paris (Paul Rudd). It ends, as Romeo and Juliet must, when Romeo hears a tragic piece of misinformation and brings his suicide wish to what was meant to be Juliet 's temporary tomb. This time, though, the turf and the weapon of choice have taken a turn toward the surreal. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

British writer-director Maria Giese filmed this independent sports drama, which centers around the wasted opportunities of young footballer Jimmy Muir (Sean Bean). Muir works in a brewery and lives with his parents and younger brother in the hard-scrabble industrial city of Sheffield, England. He loves to play soccer, but he is arrogant, disrespectful, and frequently drunk, and he has never made much of his talents. While playing for a local pub's team, Jimmy is spotted by Ken Jackson (Pete Postlethwaite), who recruits him for a higher league. Meanwhile, Jimmy embarks on an affair with a young Irish woman named Annie Docherty (Emily Lloyd), and he gets her pregnant. Jimmy gets offered a tryout with a professional club, Sheffield United. But the night before his tryout, he beds a stripper and gets roaring drunk. The next day he is useless, and he blows his big chance to make something of himself. Annie, who badly wanted him to succeed to get them both a better life, then leaves him. Jimmy finally realizes that he must change if he is going to have any kind of a future. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

A boy and his dragon unite to fight evil in this fantasy. Bowen (Dennis Quaid), a Knight of The Old Code in Medieval times, is summoned by Aislinn the Queen (Julie Christie) to the bedside of her son, Einon, who is also Bowen's student. Einon has been wounded and is near death; with his heart about to give out, Bowen calls upon Draco (voice of Sean Connery), the mightiest dragon in the land, asking for a sliver of his mighty heart so that the boy might survive. Draco makes Bowen pledge that when Enion grows to adulthood and becomes king, he will rule with fairness and compassion before the beast will donate a piece of his heart. Einon agrees to the pledge, but years later, the adult Einon (David Thewlis) has become a cruel despot, in no way good on his promises. Bowen, angry at Einon's betrayal, is convinced that the dragon is somehow responsible and goes on a spree, killing the mammoth reptiles at a fevered pace. However, when Bowen once again encounters Draco, the dragon convinces him that a dragon-slayer who has killed the last dragon also puts himself out of a job; Draco and Bowen work out a business arrangement, where the monster "attacks" villages and Bowen is paid to "kill" him. In time, however, Draco and Bowen realize that they must set aside their lucrative business in order to challenge the authority of the evil ruler. Draco the Dragon was the first fully-computer animated character to have a speaking part along side flesh and blood actors in a film; Sean Connery's recording sessions as the voice of Draco were recorded on video as well as audio tape, so that his facial expressions and mouth movements could be adapted to the character. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sean Bean returns as the stubbornly independent Captain Richard Sharpe in this historical adventure. Sharpe, an officer in the British Army, and his men are in Spain, fighting against Napoleon's forces, when he learns that Teresa (Assumpta Serna), his mistress, has given birth to his daughter. As Sharpe comes to terms with fatherhood, he loses control of the South Essex company, and learns he must now fight alongside Sgt. Obadiah Hakeswill (Pete Postlethwaite), his nemesis from his days fighting in India. As Sharpe battles Hakeswill with a vehemence that matches his contempt for the French forces, he looks for a way to regain control of the South Essex company. Sharpe's Company was based on the novel by Bernard Cornwell. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars' worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, "Verbal" Kint. Kint's nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton's misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they'd be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze's violent reputation is so infamous that he's said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Charles Dickens' 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit was given one of its few TV presentations in this six-part British adaptation, which originally aired on BBC2 from November 7 to December 12, 1994. The youngest son of a mercenary London family, Martin Chuzzlewit was sent to America to learn the rudiments of the business world. Upon discovering that his new employer was even more odious and greedy than his relatives, Martin became determined not to be corrupted as well. Paul Scofield was cast as the older Martin, with Ben Walden as his younger self. Presented in one 80-minute and five 60-minute installments, Martin Chuzzlewit was rebroadcast in America as part of PBS' Masterpiece Theatre anthology in 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The My Left Foot team of star Daniel Day-Lewis and director Jim Sheridan were reunited to make this political docudrama about Irish citizen Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis), who was wrongly convicted of taking part in an IRA bombing that killed five in Guildford, England in 1974. After a brutal interrogation forces him to sign a false confession, Gerry is sentenced to prison, his family is raked over the coals, and later his father Giuseppe (Pete Postelthwaite) is charged with being an accomplice and is also sent to prison where he lives out the last days of his life. Day-Lewis gives an outstanding performance as a man tormented by the injustice served him. Watch for Emma Thompson as the persevering lawyer who works for years, gathering evidence to clear Gerry's name. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The year is 2008 and something is terrorizing the streets of London, leaving numerous heartless corpses behind. Fortunately detective Harley Stone (Rutger Hauer) is on the case and discovers that the murderous monster behind the killings is just that. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Director Michael Mann based this lushly romantic version of the James Fenimore Cooper novel more on his memory of the 1936 film version (starring Randolph Scott) than on Cooper's novel (in fact, Philip Dunne's 1936 screenplay is cited as source material for this film). Set in the 1750s during the French and Indian War, the story concerns Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), the European-born adopted son of Mohican scout Chingachgook (Russell Means). Hawkeye and his party, which also includes the Mohican Uncas (Eric Schweig), joins up with a group of Britons who have recently arrived in the Colonies. The group consists of Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe) and her younger sister, Alice (Jodhi May), who are rescued from a Huron war party by Hawkeye. Hawkeye's band accompanies them to the British Fort William Henry, which is being besieged by a French and Huron force. The fort falls to the French, and Colonel Munro (Maurice Roeves) surrenders to French General Montcalm (Patrice Chéreau). The terms of the surrender are that the British merely abandon the fort and return to their homes. However, the French's bloodthirsty ally, the Huron warrior Magua (Wes Studi), has made no such agreement, and, as the British retreat from the fort, he plans to massacre them in a terrible Huron attack. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide