Andre Braugher Movies
Gaining notice in the early '90s for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Detective Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton on the popular television police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, tireless Chicago native Andre Braugher remained with the show through 1998 while simultaneously building a feature career with roles in such theatrical releases as Primal Fear (1996) and City of Angels (1998). A graduate of Stanford University who also received a M.F.A. from the prestigious Juilliard School, Braugher claims to have originally taken up acting to meet girls. He later changed his major after realizing his true calling during a production of Hamlet, and his first professional role came in a performance at the Berkley Shakespeare Festival. Making the leap from stage to screen with the 1989 civil war drama Glory proved an eye opening experience, and following numerous appearances as Detective Winston Blake in a series of made-for-TV Kojak features, Braugher held onto his badge by joining the cast of Homicide in 1993. Later alternating successfully between film and television, Braugher was voted one of the "50 Most Beautiful" people in a 1997 issue of People magazine; the following year, the handsome actor turned down a prominent role in the sci-fi drama Sphere in order to spend more time with his family. Jumping back into features in 2000, roles in Frequency, Duets and A Better Way to Die proved that Braugher was still in top form, and, in 2002, he turned back to the small screen with the made-for-TV feature Hack (and later reprised his role when the feature was turned into a weekly series).
Following a role in the made-for-TV feature A Soldier's Girl (2002), Braugher joined the cast of the television remake of the Stephen King vampire chiller Salem's Lot (2004), then returned to television - and changed camps to tap into the underground element - on the weekly crime drama Thief. As Nick Atwater, one of the most genial and principled of all television criminals (!), Braugher evoked an unusual ethical balance in his character and tapped into the fence's deep-seated devotion to his family, even as he drummed up a fiery intensity from episode to episode. Successive years found the actor moving into supporting roles in Hollywood A-listers with a heightened emphasis on effects-heavy action, adventure and fantasy-themed material; projects included Poseidon (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) and Stephen King's The Mist (2007). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Adapted from the best-selling novel by author Michael Crichton, director Mikael Salomon's made for television mini-series follows a group of specialized scientists as they race to cure a fast-spreading plague. A U.S. military satellite has crashed near a small Utah town, unleashing a deadly pathogen. Everyone who's come into contact with the virus has died, except for two survivors. Could something in the blood of these two survivors prove the key to immunizing the rest of mankind and preventing a devastating outbreak? Now, as a lone reporter begins investigating what he believes to be a vast government conspiracy, the military quarantines the area and a specialized team of scientists race to find a cure for the pathogen they have given the code name, "Andromeda." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Benjamin Bratt, Eric McCormack, (more)
- 2006
After years of upholding law and order on the cop drama Homicide: Life on the Street, Andre Braugher crossed over to the criminal side as the title character in the FX network weekly Thief. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the series cast Braugher as Nick Atwater, who supplemented his income as a vintage-car dealer by masterminding a team of thieves. Although Nick tried to keep his personal and professional life secret, this proved difficult when he was forced to shoulder the responsibility for his resentful and trouble-prone stepdaughter, Tammi Deveraux (Mae Whitman), after his wife, Wanda (Dina Meyer), was killed in a car accident. (In the first episode, Nick was arranging to get Tammi out of a jam with the New Orleans cops even as he and his cohorts were in the middle of pulling off a jewel heist in San Francisco!) Further complicating his life was a botched assignment in which Nick's team wound up with money stolen from a particularly vicious band of Chinese gangsters -- not to mention our "hero"'s ongoing struggle to play on both sides of the legal fence in order to keep his head above water. Also in the cast was Michael Rooker as Nick's nemesis and verbal sparring partner John Hayes, a corrupt police detective to whom extortion was second nature; Linda Hamilton as Rosalyn, Nick's fence, who like many TV-series outlaws had her own peculiar code of ethics; Clifton Collins Jr. as Nick's confederate Jack "Bump" Hill, the obligatory "crook with a conscience"; Yancey Arias as Gabriel "Gabo" Williams, the equally obligatory loose cannon of the gang, who also had a hit-and-run romance with Detective Hayes' wife; Malik Yoba as comedy-relief character Elmo "Mo" Jones, who like his boss Nick did his best to be a good family man; and Will Yun Lee as irascible Chinese hit man Vincent Chan, who was willing to let Nick live only long enough to get his mob's money back. By the time the series had concluded its initial six-week run, Nick and company were neck-deep in a scheme to steal govnerment money originally intended to pay off local authorities in the Colombian drug war. Based loosely on the 1981 James Caan theatrical feature of the same name, the weekly, hour-long Thief premiered March 28, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
- 2003
This PBS documentary addresses the ethical questions raised by modern science's newest life technologies. Genetic testing, fertility drugs, combining human and animal cells, animal-organ transplants, sperm donations...Are all of these beneficial to humankind, or do they create more problems than they solve? The documentary details specific matters of legalities, covert experimentation and "mutated" lab results arising from these scientific advances. Narrated by Andre Braugher, Bloodlines: Technology Hits Home was funded in part by the Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues division of the U.S. Department of Energy Human Genome Program. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
- 2003
In August 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth from Chicago, was visiting relatives near the town of Money, MS. Leaving a small grocery store, Emmett allegedly whistled at the white woman behind the counter. Though he didn't know it at the time, the teenager had broken a cardinal rule in the Jim Crow South -- and within a few days, his battered and mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River. After an all-too-speedy trial, the white men accused of murdering Till were acquitted, but a few years later unashamedly "confessed" to their crime in a national magazine. Emmett's mother Mamie Till Mobley had known all along that a black person could not expect fair treatment in the lily-white South, but she was not about to bury the incident along with her son's body. Grimly and defiantly, Mamie insisted that Emmett's body not be cosmetically altered by the undertaker, but that the boy's ravaged and befouled corpse be displayed in an open coffin for all to see. Photographs of this grisly site were widely distributed by the leading black-oriented publications of the period, eliciting nationwide outrage from blacks and whites alike. As an end result of Emmett's horrible death, the comparatively dormant Civil Rights movement of the late '40s and early '50s was suddenly jump-started back to life. The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the 60-minute documentary The Murder of Emmett Till made its public-TV debut as part of the American Experience anthology in January 2003 -- a scant few weeks after the death of Mamie Till Mobley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
- 2002
- Add West Point: The First 200 Years to QueueAdd West Point: The First 200 Years to top of Queue
In 1802, an act of Congress established the United States Military Academy at West Point, and in the two centuries since it opened, it has earned a reputation for academic excellence and for training some of the nation's greatest military minds. West Point: The First 200 Years is a documentary produced for PBS which offers a detailed look at the history and tradition behind America's most distinguished military academy, and the changes and challenges that point the way to West Point's future. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 2002
Avon Kirkland's Ralph Ellison: An American Journey takes a close look at the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ralph Ellison. In addition to the expected array of experts that analyze Ellison's work, Kirkland intersperses dramatized scenes from Ellison's only novel Invisible Man, including the infamous blind battle royal that appears in the beginning of the book. Andre Braugher (Homicide) provides the narration. This film was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival before playing as part of the American Masters series on PBS. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher, John Amos, (more)
In the 1920s, the rights of American workers to join a labor union was still considered an open question, and African-Americans were routinely denied their civil and economic rights. So in 1925, when journalist and political activist Asa Philip Randolph and railway car porter Ashley Totten formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, it was a bold gesture which proved to have a major impact in both labor and race relations in America. 10,000 Black Men Named George is a made-for-cable feature which dramatizes the struggle of Randolph (played by Andre Braugher) and Totten (Mario Van Peebles) to organize railway porters -- a demanding and sometimes dangerous job which was held almost exclusively by black men, who were paid low wages for demanding hours -- against the staunch opposition of Barton Davis (Kenneth McGreggor), head of the Pullman railway company and a fierce opponent of both unionization and civil rights initiatives. 10,000 Black Men Named George (the title refers to the fact Pullman porters were often called "George" by white passengers, which was considered a racial slur) also features Charles S. Dutton as Milton Webster, a veteran porter who joined the fight to organize; Carla Brothers as Lucille Randolph, Asa's wife who would play a major role in the early years of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and Brock Peters as Leon Frey, an early member of the who would in time betray their cause. Directed by Robert Townsend, the film was produced for the Showtime premium cable network, where it first aired on February 24, 2002. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher, Charles S. Dutton, (more)
- 2002
Hack was essentially The Equalizer as Cab Driver. The protagonist was divorced, disgraced ex-Philadelphia cop Mike Olshansky (David Morse). At the end of his financial rope, Mike found steady employment as a cabbie, though he was never completely successful in suppressing his strong sense of justice. Thus, he frequently became involved in the problems of his passengers, usually rounding up and clobbering bad guys in vigilante fashion. Though the series never overlapped into Travis Bickle territory, it did tend to resemble a Western with a ticking meter. So over-the-top that many viewers tuned in just for the (unintentional) laughs, Hack made its CBS debut on September 27, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Morse, Matthew Borish, (more)
- 2000
Some six months after the cancellation of the popular, hard-hitting TV cop series Homicide, most of the cast members were reunited for a two-hour TV movie, which deftly (and somewhat surprisingly) combines stark, raw realism with Sartre-esque flights of fantasy. Several members past and present of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide squad are brought back together when their former skipper and current mayoral candidate, Al "G" Giardelli (Yaphet Kotto), is gunned down by a would-be assassin. As former partners Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) conduct their own personal search for the perpetrator, the comatose "G" discovers that not all police review boards are conducted by the living. Like its weekly predecessor, Homicide: The Movie was co-produced by Baltimore native Barry Levinson. The film made its first NBC network TV appearance on February 13, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, (more)
- 2000
Documentary filmmaker Barak Goodman explores the famed Scottsboro case of 1931. That year, nine black males, aged 13 to 19, were tried, convicted, and almost executed for raping two white women of dubious reliability. The case soon became an international cause célèbre and proved to be a catalyst for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
Louis Gossett Jr. and Robert Townsend take turns directing each other in this multi-part film about the many facets of love and passion. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Townsend, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1999
The D.A.'s office has quite a full docket in this episode. Vital ingredients include an assault on a former attorney, a messy divorce, the death of a patient during a routine operation, charges of criminal negligence leveled against two doctors, and a significant name spoken in passing. As A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael, actress Angie Harmon provides most of the episode's dramatic intensity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Two self-styled criminal masterminds find themselves in a turf battle neither much cares about in this underworld story that balances comedy against drama. Alec Baldwin plays Mackin, a career thief who picks his jobs shrewdly and carefully, and prefers to spend his downtime with his collection of rare jazz LP's and looking after his dog. Pointy (Michael Jai White) is a young upstart gangster trying to develop a taste for refinement and the good life. When Pointy sets up Mackin, Mackin is forced to retaliate, and before long both men and their associates are in the middle of a war neither is especially interested in winning, which begins to escalate in comic fashion. The skirmish eventually attracts the attention of a female cop (Rebecca De Mornay) who's become interested in Mackin's method of operation. Thick As Thieves received its world premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec Baldwin, Andre Braugher, (more)
Director James D. Stern debuts with this darkly comedic, archly ironic look at America's obsession with guns. The film opens with Helen and Warren Harding (Joan Allen and Jeff Daniels) awaking one night to the sounds of their suburban trophy getting broken into. Warren grabs his trusty handgun and blows away the intruder, only to complain about the blood spots on his newly purchased bathrobe from Sundance. The unlucky guy turns out to be Warren's business partner, and it does not take long for him to wonder out loud if his wife and the dead man were having an affair. Meanwhile, Warren's lawyer Tim (Andre Braugher), whose civil-rights leading father was gunned down when he was a boy, receives a handsome gun from his film fanatic boyfriend Chris (David Schwimmer). Others involved include the young nymphet Annabel Lee (Anna Paquin) and her thuggishly violent brother Sidney (Giovanni Ribisi); Mr. Morgan (Gary Sinise), an eccentric and extremely paranoid Internet tycoon; and Tennel (Josh Brolin), a video store manager turned poet. All of these characters have their own personal axes to grind and all have easy access to guns. The result is as violent as it is senseless. All the Rage was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Allen, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1999
Shot in the high-definition IMAX format, Wildfire: Feel the Heat takes an inside look at the hot, dangerous, but exciting work of men who battle fires for a living. Examining blazes that threaten buildings and property as well as forest fires that can destroy woodlands, this film gives viewers insight into the sort of men who choose firefighting as a career, as well as the variety of technology at their disposal. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
- 1998
In the conclusion of Homicide: Life on the Street's two-part season six finale, the Baltimore police declares all-out war against the Mahoney drug operation after a shoot-out in the homicide unit's interrogation chamber which left detectives Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Gharty (Peter Gerety) serious wounded. In the course of the ensuing battle, Stivers (Toni Lewis) finally reveals the whole truth about the shooting of Georgia Rae Mahoney's brother Luther to Giardello (Yaphet Kotto); and Bayliss (Kyle Secor) takes a bullet meant for Pembleton (Andre Braugher) in the climactic assault against the fugitive Georgia Rae. Typically, this cliffhanger finale leaves several loose plot ends dangling, including the possible resignations of two of the series' most prominent characters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
In the first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street's two-part season six finale, Judge Gibbons, who presided over the Mahoney wrongful-death suit, is found murdered -- and before long, three cops are killed in drive-bys that may be related to Gibbons' death. The FBI joins the homicide unit to crack the case, with all evidence pointing back to the drug-dealing empire of Georgia Mae Mahoney, which is now self-destructing in a deadly turf war. As Kellerman (Reed Diamond) broods over the likelihood that his public chastisement of Gibbons may have brought about the man's death, Georgia Rae's son Junior Bunk (Mekhi Phifer) is brought in for questioning -- whereupon Junior grabs a gun and begins firing, seriously wounding two of the series' main characters! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
Two prominent members of the same exclusive country club have apparently committed suicide. Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Munch (Richard Belzer) investigate one of the deaths, while Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Bayliss (Andre Braugher) investigate the other -- whereupon both teams unearth evidence of a blackmail-murder plot. Meanwhile, Lewis (Clark Johnson) is off suspension and back on duty; another member of the Mahoney crime operation turns up dead; and even though the civil suit against the police is dismissed, Kellerman (Reed Diamond) can't leave well enough alone, launching into a public tirade that may very well seal the doom of one of the key players in the suit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
Bayliss (Kyle Secor) has never gotten over his first homicide case, the unsolved murder of young Adena Watson. His memories are jarred once again when an old man comes into the precinct house, announcing that his father committed the notorious, never-solved killing of an eight-year-old girl in 1932. Looking into this assertion, Falsone (Jon Seda) learns that the missing files for the 1932 case are in the hands of retired homicide detective Thomas Finnegan (Charles Durning) -- who insists upon participating in the newly reopened investigation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
A pager number is the only clue in the death of a "perfect" high school athlete. While chasing down the wrong path to find a possible suspect, Bayliss (Kyle Secor) stumbles upon details of another crime -- one that will ultimately earn him and Pembleton (Andre Braugher) a commendation. Meanwhile, it looks as though the Mahoney drug empire is imploding, as several of Georgia Rae Mahoney's henchmen end up murdered. And the judge who made the questionable ruling in Georgia Rae's wrongful-death lawsuit gets his just desserts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Gharty (Peter Gerety) run up against a wall of confusion as they investigate the murders of two women who were felled by a stun gun and strangled after accepting drinks from a kinky married couple. Things get more and more curious when one of the suspects makes a full confession -- which turns out to be a lie from start to finish. Meanwhile, Lewis (Clark Johnson) turns over important information relating to the Mahoney drug shootings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
Falsone (Jon Seda) is the primary investigator when a four-year-old boy is abducted from a merry-go-round right under his mother's nose. Before long, the precinct gets a call from a man claiming to be the kidnapper -- and another call from the publicity-conscious host of the crime-solving TV show "This Week's Wanted." The key to the solution of this case ends up in the hands of a professional hypnotist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
Alfre Woodard reprises her St. Elsewhere role as Dr. Roxanne Turner in this episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. The homicide detectives are called in when a woman insists that her cancer-ridden brother was euthanized by Dr. Turner. In the interrogation room, Turner admits that she has frequently injected terminal patients with a lethal dose of morphine, leading to a variety of reactions from the detectives. Elsewhere, Stivers (Toni Lewis) and Falsone (Jon Seda) become personally involved in their investigation of a pizza-parlor holdup which resulted in the death of a schoolgirl. And, still hoping to spare the department from a multimillion dollar lawsuit, Kellerman (Reed Diamond) secretly tapes Judge Gibbons (Rick Warner) while they discuss Gibbons' ruling in the Luther Mahoney wrongful-death case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 1998
The department swings into action when an old man is apparently killed by his grandson's three pit bulls -- who are now on the loose. Kellerman (Reed Diamond) smells something fishy when the judge presiding over Georgia Rae Mahoney's wrongful-death suit insists that the case go before a jury. And with all of this occurring, the detectives still find time to go to the Watefront Bar to swap "stupid criminal" stories. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
