John Wilmot Movies
- 1991
Based on the true-life adventures of the late Drug Enforcement Agency spy Barry Seal, this exciting espionage adventure chronicles the events that lead up to his death in 1984. Before coming to work for the DEA, smooth-talking Seal (Dennis Hopper) had been a drug smuggler for the notorious Medellin Cartel in Colombia. The DEA captures him and he agrees to become their informant. Unfortunately, though he is a master con artist, he is no match for the con men running the U.S. government agency. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Hopper
- 1989
This made-for-cable biopic originally went out under the simpler title Margaret Bourke-White. Farrah Fawcett stars as the famed photojournalist, whose work for Life magazine from 1936 onward gained her worldwide celebrity. The best scenes, showing the dauntless Bourke-White (Fawcett) at work in the most grueling and perilous of situations, are all too fleeting. The filmmakers evidently believed that the audience would be more intrigued by Bourke-White's stormy relationship with her husband, novelist Erskine Caldwell (played with a fluctuating Southern accent by Frederic Forrest). The film's chief assets are the well-focused performance of Farrah Fawcett, and the lensed-on-location sequences in Louisiana and Moscow. Margaret Bourke-White premiered over the TNT cable channel on April 24, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Produced in the Autumn of the Golan-Globus collaboration, Avenging Force serves as a vehicle for American Ninja costar Michael Dudikoff. Cast as a retired secret service agent, Dudikoff runs up against a sinister right-wing political organization called the Pentangle. He comes to the aid of his best friend Steve James, a black political candidate who has become a target for the Pentangle's henchmen. Impressed by Dudikoff's martial arts skills, the Pentangle leaders try to convince him to join their cause-and to ensure his cooperation, they kidnap his little sister Alison Gereighty. Avenging Force concludes with a violent Enter the Dragon-style mano y mano squareoff between Dudikoff and the Pentangle flunkeys. The film's finale is "open" enough to allow for a sequel, which has yet to appear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, (more)
Clint Eastwood plays a New Orleans detective determined to track down a serial killer of prostitutes. Complicating matters is the fact that the unknown culprit is very likely an S&M fetishist....and so is Eastwood. The detective is profoundly disturbed at the likelihood that he and the killer have the same taste in women; this element of the case is equally troublesome for psychologist Genevieve Bujold, who finds herself attracted to Eastwood. The climax involves the killer's attempting to throw Eastwood off the track by kidnapping one of the detective's two daughters (played quite well by Clint's real-life daughter Alison). Despite its reliance on bloodletting, particularly in the final scenes, Tightrope is most effective when probing the hangups and vulnerabilities of Clint Eastwood's character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Geneviève Bujold, (more)
For his follow-up to 1979's Academy Award-winning Norma Rae, director Martin Ritt re-teams with that film's star, Sally Field, for this gritty romantic road comedy. Reportedly Ritt's homage to Frank Capra's films of the 1930s, Back Roads stars Field as Amy Post, a no-nonsense prostitute in the deep South struggling with the fact that she gave up her only child for adoption. When Amy first encounters the recently unemployed Elmore Pratt (Tommy Lee Jones), she is anything but fond of the drifter. But after taking to the road together with dreams of California, the two societal misfits find themselves falling for each other. Ritt and Field would team together once again four years later in another romantic comedy set in the South, Murphy's Romance. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, (more)
- 1978
Didi Conn, who skyrocketed to fame thanks to Saturday Night Fever (77) and You Light Up My Life (78), did nothing for her career with the made-for-TV Murder at the Mardi Gras. Conn plays a loopy young Philadelphia waitress who witnesses a murder during the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration, but can't get anyone to believe her. The murderer, who is disguised variously as a large pink rabbit and a headless gorilla, spends most of "Fat Tuesday" pursuing poor Didi Conn up street, down alley, and around the other costumed revellers. With an all-TV cast, it's hard to tell at first whodunit--since all the actors have played the mystery killer at one time or another in their careers. The biggest mystery is the participation of director Ken Annakin, who surely does not list Murder at the Mardi Gras on the same resume as his earlier Swiss Family Robinson, The Longest Day, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
