Brian Bradley Movies

As Jasmine (Gina Torres) prepares to secure her dominion over the entire planet via a worldwide satellite broadcast, Angel (David Boreanaz) makes his way through the last dimension to enjoy her oppressive love. There, amidst a desolate, otherworldly landscape, he encounters Jasmine's High Priest (Robert Towers), who taunts the vampire champion about all that Jasmine has taken from him. Back on earth, Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) captures Wesley (Alexis Denisof), Fred (Amy Acker), Gunn (J. August Richards), and Lorne (Andy Hallett), but Jasmine keeps them as bargaining chips rather than killing them. As the interloping higher power devours another flock of her followers, Connor stuns his prisoners by revealing that he's been able to see her pestilent true face all along. Upset that Jasmine still won't divulge what happened to Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Connor beats the information out of some acolytes. Rather than being eaten by her demon love-child, it seems that Cordy has been squirreled away for safekeeping. Connor finds his paramour and confesses to her still-unconscious form that despite his desperate need for belonging, he recognizes the danger of Jasmine's coercive agenda for peace. Back at the hotel, as the bug-faced one begins her global address, Angel arrives to reveal her true name to the assembled throng. All across the planet, people are suddenly able to see the higher being for what she truly is. Rioting breaks out, and in the climactic battle that follows, Jasmine is felled once and for all by an unlikely opponent. A battered Angel returns to the hotel, sick with worry about Connor, only to find a surprise visitor: the late Lilah Morgan (Stephanie Romanov), who was last seen as a headless corpse (see "Salvage"). Originally broadcast April 30, 2003, on the WB network, "Peace Out" marked season four, episode 21 of the supernatural soap opera. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Loosely based on the life and times of several R&B artists (The Dells, The Temptations, Frankie Lymon, Sam Cooke and others) The Five Heartbeats traces the rise and fall of a popular African-American 1950s singing aggregation. The story is told from the point of view of one of the "Heartbeats," played by Robert Townsend (who also co-produced, directed and co-wrote the script with Keenan Ivory Waynans). The film is an amalgam of anecdotes drawn from real-life experiences: the long struggle upward, the first rush of success, the dishonest record-company executives, the hard-nosed but nurturing managers, the sex, the drugs, the isolation and the precipitous downward slide. The film begins and ends in the 1990s, as the middle-aged "Duck" (Townsend) ruminates on the past and makes the best of the present. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This comedy is set in Hollywood in 1961, where a group of young men join the National Guard in an attempt to escape Vietnam. The men basically do nothing while on supposed weekend duty until they get a visit from the Army, which threatens to ship them out on active duty unless they shape up. Their solution is to hire a troupe of actors to portray convincing soldiers, put on a stage show to impress the Army officers, and make sure that enough winsome nurses are around to satisfy the proverbial lecherous tendencies of a certain colonel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

William Friedkin's crime thriller, based on a book by U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, concerns an arrogant Secret Service official who wants to get his man at any price. Willem Dafoe plays Eric Masters, an ultra-smooth counterfeiter who has managed to sidestep the police for years. He is so up-front about his dealings, in fact, that when some undercover agents try to make a deal with him at his health club, Eric tells them, "I've been coming to this gym three times a week for five years. I'm an easy guy to find. People know they can trust me." But when young and eager Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) finds out that his partner has been cold-bloodedly murdered by Eric, he trains his relentlessness upon capturing Eric -- whether it means robbery, murder, or exploiting his friends and associates. As Chance erases the dividing line between good and evil, he drags his new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) and Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel), an ex-con, down into the maelstrom with him. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi