Arnold Vosloo Movies
An actor who is best known for his role as the eponymous dead man with a grudge in 1999's The Mummy, Arnold Vosloo has been active in film since he immigrated to the U.S. from his native South Africa. Born the son of actors in Pretoria on June 16, 1962, Vosloo spent much of his childhood travelling South Africa with his parents. After leaving school, he went into the army and then spent two years with the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal. Vosloo made a name for himself on the Pretoria stage, winning one of its most prestigious awards, the Dalro, and then set off for the U.S. Once there, he acted on the Chicago and New York stages, at one point performing alongside Al Pacino in the Circle in the Square's production of Salomé. Although Vosloo made his film debut in 1985, it was not until he starred in The Mummy that he gained any substantial measure of recognition. The film, which was one of 1999's summer hits, also starred Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah. Vosloo and his fellow cast members reprised their roles two years later for the film's sequel, the aptly-titled The Mummy Returns. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- PG13
This, the second of 1992's 500th anniversary Christopher Columbus films (the first being Warner Bros. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery), adheres to the historical facts of Columbus's (Gerard Depardieu) possessed quest to discover the New World, and his solicitation of Queen Isabella (Sigourney Weaver) to gain the necessary funding. Despite travelogue-quality footage replete with beautiful scenery of Caribbean islands and a massive cast, this film tends to plod along with too predictable a plot and a mis-cast Columbus. Depardieu -- a very capable French actor speaking English and playing an Italian -- becomes perhaps the movie's bright spot (even if at his own expense) as he laughably struggles with line after line. Michael Wincott puts forth a worthy performance as a nasty Spanish nobleman whose mistreatment of the natives results in an open rebellion. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Armand Assante, (more)
- 1992
- R
In this erotic thriller, Los Angeles is being terrorized by a serial killer, and detectives Sam Stone (Michael Nader) and his ex-wife Hannah (Shelley Hack) are thrown together in an attempt to capture the murderer. Working as an undercover agent, Hannah develops a soft spot for one of the prime suspects who threatens to blow either her cover, or her ex-husband's cool. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
Wings Hauser directed and stars in this mystery about a Las Vegas detective who learns that a woman believed dead is actually alive and well and involved in a blackmail plot. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wings Hauser, Darcy de Moss, (more)
- 1990
- R
The tapes referred to in the movie title contain evidence revealing a chemical-weapons industry sanctioned by a Soviet-block country; they are filled with computer statistics of the African natives who have succumbed to the illegally dispensed chemicals. The evidence fall into the unwitting hands of an American journalist and her small son. An American special agent is sent to recover the tapes and rescue the endangered journalist from the intrigue. Meanwhile, ruthless Libyan agents intend to secure the tapes at any cost. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1990
- R
Wings Hauser plays a heroic bounty hunter searching for the serial killer who has been slaying streetwalkers in this slice-n-dicer. To catch him, the hero offers his own girl friend as a decoy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This action-adventure film is based on a novel by Edgar Wallace. In the story, Colonel Smith (Ernest Borgnine) is an aging military man whose son is a CIA agent. His son has been captured by a bevy of iron-curtain bad-guys involved in a civil war in the African country of Angola, and Col. Smith is determined to rescue him. He puts together a group of military types to effect the rescue, and runs afoul of all sorts of nefarious characters in the process, including an East German military advisor (Robert Vaughn) and a shady diamond company security chief (Oliver Reed). Lovely Sam (Nancy Mulford) adds visual interest to the rescue team, and manages some dandy hand-to-hand combat moves. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ernest Borgnine, Robert Vaughn, (more)
- 1989
- R
Although this bloody, relentlessly weird South African production purports to be a modern-day treatment of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (most promotional materials list the author's name above the title), it actually bears so little relation to Poe's writing that it makes Roger Corman's Poe "adaptations" seem meticulously loyal by comparison. The story involves a young psychologist whose arrival at the creepy Ravenscroft Institute for troubled girls is followed by the disappearance of several students. Tormented by a series of grotesque nightmares involving a deranged killer, the heroine eventually learns of the bizarre goings-on within the school's hallowed halls. Some oddball touches and outlandish performances from Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasence (in a bad wig) make this film just campy enough to be entertaining. Alert viewers can spot John Carradine in his final role. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Ray Sharkey makes one of his last film appearances in 1989's Act of Piracy. Sharkey plays a contemporary buccaneer whose cutthroat gang swipes contractor Gary Busey's technologically advanced yacht. The pirates also inadvertently abduct Busey's children, who remained hidden during the siege. With no money to ransom his captive offspring, Busey undertakes his own rescue mission. Slow going until the slam-bang finale, Act of Piracy is acceptable nonthink entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Busey, Belinda Bauer, (more)
- 1987
Based on a play by screenwriter Paul Slabolepszy which in turn is based on true story, and set in a fast-food restaurant in a South African suburb, this gripping and thought-provoking drama offers insight into the origins of apartheid as it follows a struggle between an antagonistic, frustrated white man and a black restaurant employee upon whom the white man vents his long-pent up rage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Kani, Paul Slabolepszy, (more)
- 1987
- PG
In this sword and sorcery film, a wimpy college professor Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) is mysteriously thrown into the world of Gor, where he must battle the evil Sarm (Oliver Reed) to save the innocent people of Gor. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Urbano Barberini, Rebecca Ferratti, (more)
This futuristic drama offers the classic story of Shane seved up with a few Mad Max moments and some interesting twists. The tale is set in the smouldering, decimated post-World War III town of Meridian, where locals scrabble to keep their meager farms watered in the midst of a desert wasteland. Bad-guys - a powerful landowner and his cronies - try to monopolize the precious local water supplies by bullying, kidnapping and even murdering citizens. To this beleaguered place comes the enigmatic swordsman/ warrior Nomad who has come in search of his mentor's killer. The town takes him on as their "Peacemaker" and he is able to end their problems and get his revenge to boot. The story was filmed on location in the deserts of South Africa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi, (more)
- 1985
Based on a novel of the same title by Uwe Timm and set in 1904 in South Africa, this is an uneven tale of war and intrigue between native South Africans, German colonialists, and British colonialists, a war no one really wins. Gottschalk (Jacques Breuer) and Wenstrup (Edwin Noel) are two German veterinarians who have settled in German Southwest Africa to tend to the needs of cattle ranchers. When a rebellion by a local dissident named Morenga (Ken Gampu) is brutally crushed by the Germans, the two vets get involved, at great risk to themselves, and offer help to the native revolutionaries. What follows is a sequence of battles and skirmishes that ultimately lead to Morenga seeking asylum in South Africa, where the ruling Brits are about as trustworthy as their German counterparts. Morenga was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Breuer, Jurgen Holtz, (more)
