Jeffrey Wright Movies

Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) is a bland, oppressed man who burns with a quiet, corrosive intensity that can flare uncontrollably. A Philadelphia prosecutor, Sabich's fire seems to have one outlet: his job. He loves prosecuting people. Otherwise, his life is dead-ended. He has a loveless marriage to a neurotic woman (Bonnie Bedelia) and an overbearing boss (Brian Dennehy) in a labyrinthine law enforcement world of corruption and twisted relationships. Then Carolyn Polhemus (Greta Scacchi) comes into his life. Lovely and seductive, Polhemus easily entices him to break his marital vows, but she schemes to get him to try for his boss' job. When he refuses, she leaves him. When she turns up dead, the victim of an apparent rape-murder, clues begin to point to Sabich. His blood type almost perfectly matches that in the semen found in the victim, carpet fibers at the crime scene match those found in his house, and most damning, his fingerprints are found on a beer glass in Polhemus' apartment. His protestations of innocence ignored, Sabich is put on trial for the murder and hires his biggest adversary (Raul Julia) to defend him. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

This bleak, provocative drama, the debut of filmmaker Jeff Stanzler, gives a haunting look at the effects of drug abuse upon those who care for the user. It tells the story of unemployed, depressed and just-divorced Bronx-resident Manny who hears burglars in his kitchen one morning and walks in to find his little brother Danny and Danny's girlfriend Jeanette rifling around for money to support their crack cocaine habits. Using the baseball bat he carries, Manny nearly beats his errant brother to death. He grabs their drugs and bundles them into his car for a long drive to the graveyard where their recently deceased father is buried. Thus begins a long, depressing journey between the disparate brothers as they try to make peace with their pasts and find redemption for their wasted lives amidst the ruins of their old neighborhood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A hit man discovers the pros and cons of getting to know his victim in this dark comedy. Margaret (Cher) is supposed to be celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary, but she hardly feels like having a party; her marriage is in sad shape, her husband Jack (Ryan O'Neal) has just called to say he's going to be working late (she realizes this means that he's actually with his mistress), and she's sunk into a deep depression that borders on the suicidal. After a long bath, Margaret discovers that she's not alone in the house; Tony (Chazz Palminteri), a hit man, has been hired by Jack to knock her off (Margaret's death would mean a $5 million insurance claim for Jack), and he ties her to a chair, waiting for a call from Jack that signals he's out of town and that it's all right to proceed with the execution. With nothing to do while they wait, Tony and Margaret begin to talk; Margaret starts to feel like death isn't such a good idea after all, while Tony isn't so sure he wants to kill her anymore. Faithful was based on a stage play by co-star Palminteri; Robert DeNiro, who made his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale, written by Palminteri, served as co-producer for this film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a three-part story arc, civic leader Felix Wilson (James Earl Jones) goes on TV to offer a reward for information pertaining to the murder of the Wilson family's maid -- never mind that both Felix and his son Hal (Jeffrey Wright) are prime suspects. An embarrassed Col. Barnfather (Clayton LeBouef) demands that the homicide unit solve the murder immediately, forcing a reluctant Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) to amass damaging evidence against their longtime friend Wilson. Meanwhile, Falsone (Jon Seda) still thinks that his fellow detectives are withholding the facts surrounding the death of drug kingpin Luther Mahoney, while a recorded phone message leads Stivers (Toni Lewis) to believe that a crooked cop in the narcotics division is supplying inside information to Mahoney's henchmen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season six of Homicide: Life on the Street is marked by several changes in the Baltimore homicide unit, not least of which is the exit of two main characters, Sgt. Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and videographer J.H. Brodie (Max Perlich). Several of the remaining unit members are still being rotated to other departments, though detectives Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) have been returned to the open arms of their longtime skipper, Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto). New faces in the squad room include Detective Paul Falsone (Jon Seda), late of the auto-theft division; Detective Stuart Gharty (Peter Gerety), formerly a uniformed officer; and Detective Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne), fresh from of tour of duty with the Seattle homicide department. All three of the newcomers face a hectic initation as they dodge the bullets of a sniper running wild in Baltimore. But the main story line in this first episode of the new season gets under way as Giardello attends a formal reception for his longtime friend, black businessman and community activist Felix Wilson (James Earl Jones) -- only to be swept into an unsettling murder investigation when the body of the Wilson family's maid is found in the men's room of the reception hall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

South Korean-born Wonsuk Chin, a NYC resident for eight years, made his directorial debut with this hip comedy, shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. With numerous cinematic references and allusions (Bergman, Godard, Woo, Hartley), the tale begins with a black-and-white silent sequence depicting Death chasing a young man through Old Baghdad. The setting shifts to present-day New York, where a Japanese man, Kenji (Takeshi Kaneshiro of Chungking Express) is seen abed in a sparsely furnished apartment. Kinji goes to a local cafe where he chats with several others: Italian friend Fabrizio (Michael Imperioli) who proclaims, "Lubitsch is the god!"; a literary wit, Balzac Man (Jeffrey Wright); and an enigmatic German woman, Pola (Geno Lechner), who hints at a possible sexual liaison with Kinji. Death (Mira Sorvino) drifts about, assuming various forms -- disco gal, Japanese geisha, Chinese woman, devil with a red dress on, and a French-accented figure dressed as a man. The sad and lonely Death informs Kenji that she has no choice in determining her victims, and he also learns from her that he has only 12 hours left to live. She suggests that he make the most of his remaining minutes, so he sets forth on a series of brief adventures. At the cafe, he chides famous artist John Sage (Ben Gazzara) for being involved with a decades-younger girlfriend, the beautiful Korean Anouk (Hye Soo Kim). Sage invites Kenji to dinner at their home, and Death invites herself. Kenji makes the proposal that since he's due to die, he could be allowed sex with Anouk as a final act. This request isn't well received by anyone present, leaving Kenji to his own devices as the darkness closes in. Mira Sorvino wears a virtual fashion show of colorful costumes in this movie, which also provided her with the opportunity to speak Chinese onscreen for the first time. Sorvino majored in Asian studies at Harvard and lived for eight months (1988-89) in Beijing, where she studied Chinese, taught English, and viewed a variety of Chinese films. Too Tired to Die and The Replacement Killers both brought her several steps closer to her announced goal of making a film in Mandarin and working with a Chinese director. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A complex tale of uneasy alliances along the Kansas/Missouri border during the Civil War, Ride with the Devil concerns Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich), a proud son of the South ready to fight for the Confederate cause after his father is killed by Union troops. Chiles's best friend, Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire), joins the Bushwhackers, a group of renegade Southerners aligned with the Confederate Army, even though his family supports the Union cause. The two young men, used to the slow pace and gracious lifestyle of the South's privileged class, are soon confronted with the chaos of battle. Their comrades include valiant leader Black John (James Caviezel), paranoid madman Pitt (Jonathan Rhys Myers), Southern gentleman George (Simon Baker), and Daniel (Jeffrey Wright), a slave from George's plantation. The Bushwhackers hide out in a barn near the home of Sue Lee (singer/songwriter/poet Jewel, in her film debut), a pregnant widow whose husband died in battle three weeks after their marriage. Roedel and Sue Lee begin a chaste romance, but it remains to be seen if the war will permit them to stay together. Adapted from the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, Ride with the Devil was directed by Ang Lee, whose previous project was a very different look at America's past, the 1970s domestic drama The Ice Storm (1997). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sylvester Stallone returned to the screen after a three-year absence (excepting his voice work in Antz) with this tense and violent psychological crime thriller. FBI agent Jake Malloy (Stallone) has been traumatized by an especially vicious murder. No longer able to perform his job, Malloy is referred to a clinic for members of the law enforcement community, run by doctors Hank (Tom Berenger) and Doc (Kris Kristofferson). Jake begins receiving therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, but crime follows him inside the clinic; a serial killer has invaded the facility and is killing off the patients one by one, in increasingly gruesome ways. Soon Jake must set aside his fears and track down the murderer, before he becomes the next victim. D-Tox (which, in production, was publicized under the titles Detox and The Outpost) was released on video as Eye See You. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This action drama puts a new spin on Shaft, one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the namesake nephew of the legendary private eye (Richard Roundtree), is a street-smart police detective who with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams) has been assigned to a racially motivated murder case, in which a black college student was killed in front of a restaurant by Walter Williams Jr. (Christian Bale), the sociopathic son of a New York construction tycoon, who then fled the country rather than face prosecution. Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), a waitress on a smoke break, saw the murder, but she doesn't want to talk to the police. Two years later, Walter is forced to return to New York, but without Diane's testimony, the city doesn't have much of a case. Soon, Shaft, Walter Junior, and Walter Senior's goons are all looking for Diane, with Junior enlisting the help of Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright), a small-time drug dealer who will do anything to move into the big leagues. Shaft and Carmen find Diane, but discover that she had a good reason for being on the lam for the past two years. Amidst all this activity, John gets frequent advice from his uncle, with whom he ponders the idea of quitting the force and opening a detective agency. Shaft was directed by John Singleton, from a screenplay by Singleton, Richard Price, and Shane Salerno. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Notoriously obsessive director Michael Mann and star Will Smith devoted nearly two years and over 100 million dollars from the coffers of Columbia Pictures and other financiers to creating this biography of boxing great Muhammad Ali, which focuses on the ten-year period of 1964-1974. In that time, the brash, motor-mouthed athlete quickly dominates his sport, meets and marries his first wife (Jada Pinkett-Smith), converts to Islam (changing his name from Cassius Clay), and defies the United States government by refusing to submit to military conscription for duty in Vietnam. His world heavyweight champion title thus stripped from him entirely for political reasons, the champ sets about to win back his crown, culminating in a legendary unification bout against George Foreman (Charles Shufford) in Zaire, dubbed the "Rumble in the Jungle." In his travels, Ali becomes a symbol of power to disenfranchised African-Americans everywhere and meets such luminaries as Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles), Martin Luther King Jr. (LeVar Burton) and Maya Angelou (Martha Edgerton). Ali features an all-star supporting cast that includes Jon Voight, Giancarlo Esposito, Jamie Foxx, Nona Gaye, Michael Michele, Joe Morton, Paul Rodriguez, Ron Silver, Mykelti Williamson, and Jeffrey Wright. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Oren Jacoby's documentary Topdog Diaries takes a look at the rehearsals for the successful theatrical production of Topdog/Underdog. In addition to offering a look at stars Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright honing their performances, the film documents the career of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Directed by Hoop Dreams producer Peter Gilbert, With All Deliberate Speed is a reflection on the state of civil rights in America 50 years after the May 17, 1954, unanimous Supreme Court ruling stating that the doctrine of "separate but equal" was inconsistent with the constitution of the United States. This documentary offers a glance into the lives of the unsung heroes in the struggle for America's desegregation. A series of intimate interviews, eyewitness accounts, and unique original footage helps to illustrate the stories of the teachers, students, lawyers, and judges whose commitment would have a profound effect on African-Americans for decades to come. Among the film's participants are the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., as well as the Reverend Joe Delaine, Barbara Johns, Vernon Jordan, and Julian Bond. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide