Leon Robinson Movies
Known to many simply as Leon, Leon Robinson began his career in the early '80s, making several small appearances in various projects like the mini-series The Women of Brewster Place and the Tom Cruise movie All the Right Moves. He would continue to make memorable supporting appearances over the course of his career, with unique roles like soldier Killer Bee in the civil war drama Colors, and the statue of a saint that comes to life in the controversial music video for the Madonna song "Like a Prayer." Leon kept this up throughout the 2000s, as well, showing up everywhere from the acclaimed series Oz to the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin'. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi
Australian director Gregor Jordan makes his sophomore effort with this tale about crooked U.S. soldiers based in Germany during the waning days of the cold war. Special Fourth Class soldier Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) guards against the Soviets while on duty, and rips off the U.S. military while off duty. Handsome, calculating, and thoroughly amoral, Elwood runs a profitable black-market business that operates just below the official radar. He and his associates make drugs to sell to his fellow GIs; steal Army supplies, selling them to a German connection; and a host of other dirty deeds. One day, he and his gang uncover some loot that will land them some real money -- high-tech military weaponry. As they try to quietly offload the stuff, the new sergeant, Robert K. Lee (Scott Glenn), catches on to Elwood's nefarious deeds and sets out to put him out of businesses. Elwood, in turn, catches on to the fact that Lee has a very attractive daughter (Anna Paquin) and sets out to bed her. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Joaquin Phoenix, Anna Paquin, (more)
Colors stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD's gang crime division. Duvall had hoped to spend more time with his family, but he's pulled back into active service because of a step-up in gang activity. He makes no secret of his contempt for his novice partner Penn, but eventually comes to rely on the younger man as a valuable street contact. The central crisis is the battle for supremacy between the "Crips" and the "Bloods", with every effort to call a truce stymied by the gang members themselves and by undue police intervention. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Robert Duvall, (more)
- 1987
In this provocative made-for-television drama, an African American Chicago priest takes on the Catholic church during his fight to adopt a troubled teen and save him from life on the streets. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Louis Gossett, Jr.
Former Starsky and Hutch star Paul Michael Glaser warmed the director's chair for Band of the Hand. The film zeroes in on five juvenile delinquents who are plucked from their various detention facilities and unceremoniously dumped in the wilds of the Everglades. The boys begin to panic until hardcase Vietnam veteran Stephen Lang arrives. Lang explains that they've been paroled in his custody, and that it is his task to teach them how to work as a team in order to survive. The logic of this plan is to whip the boys into an elite vigilante unit, then sic them on the various drug dealers of America. The film features early performances by Lauren Holly and Larry Fishburne and Bob Dylan can be heard singing the title song. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stephen Lang, Michael Carmine, (more)
In a sex-and-violence film that emphasizes the physical abuse of young women, director Joan Freeman may raise the shackles as well as the hackles of her distaff viewing audience. Cookie (Melissa Leo) is a young runaway who arrives in New York City with her brother in tow and ends up working as a prostitute for the apparently easy-going Duke (Dale Midkiff). Everything seems fine, at least as much as can be expected, until one of Duke's streetwalkers threatens to quit, and he nearly beats her to death. Sickened and shocked, Cookie runs away with an infuriated Duke hot in pursuit and unsparing of anyone who gets in his way. The murders, the beatings, the stabbings, and other forms of mayhem weigh heavily in the plot's sequences. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Melissa Leo, Dale Midkiff, (more)
Set in 1963, The Flamingo Kid finds 18-year-old Brooklynite Matt Dillon, the son of blue-collar Hector Elizondo, getting a taste of the Good Life by joining several of his friends at "El Flamingo", a swank Long Island beach club. Wealthy car salesman Richard Crenna, the uncle of Matt's girl friend Janet Jones, befriends the boy and takes him under his wing. Thanks to Crenna's influence, Matt secures a good job at the Flamingo. The boy is bedazzled by Crenna's sumptuous lifestyle, and most especially by the older man's reputation as the Flamingo's reigning gin rummy champ. Dillon begins taking on airs, which alienates his down-to-earth father. Watch for a scene in which, while channel-surfing with his new remote control, Richard Crenna watches a fleeting clip from the old TV sitcom The Real McCoys--featuring Richard Crenna. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Matt Dillon, Richard Crenna, (more)
High school athlete Tom Cruise would do anything to escape the dull provincialism of his home town. Cruise's bullying coach Craig T. Nelson cajoles Cruise into seeking an athletic scholarship to a major university. Inevitably, the boy begins to question his goals in life, and soon his soul is the object of a tug of war between Nelson and Cruise's girlfriend Lea Thompson. The first directorial effort for cinematographer Michael Chapman, All the Right Moves was photographed by Jan DeBont, who'd later direct such box-office bonanzas as Speed and Twister. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Craig T. Nelson, (more)
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