Thomas Carter Movies

Cuba Gooding Jr. stars as real-life neurosurgeon Ben Carson in this made-for-TV biographical drama from TNT. Directed by Thomas Carter (Coach Carter), the film reveals Carson's inspiring life story as a poor, inner-city youth who overcame great odds to become one of the world's best surgeons, thanks to the love of his determined single mother (played by Kimberly Elise) and an unswerving Christian faith. ~ All Movie Guide

When a hard-nosed NFL star realizes that his kids have grown up to become spoiled brats, he determines to toughen them up by making them spend their summer on the mean streets of Oakland, CA, in this comedy inspired by the story of New England Patriots footballer Tebucky Jones. Though the well-intending father is certain that his kids will realize the error of their ways if they only spend a little time on the same streets he did as a child, it isn't just the youngsters who end up benefiting from the unique experience in the end. Ice Cube stars in a family comedy penned by screenwriters Caleb Wilson and Matt Allen, and directed by Thomas Carter (Metro and Coach Carter). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

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

Shown on the Fox network, this made-for-TV biopic stars David Ramsey as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, whose story is told largely in flashbacks. Beginning with Ali's childhood, when he was known as Cassius Clay, Ali: An American Hero traces the boxer's career, love life, and eventual devotion to Islam. Joe Morton appears as Malcolm X, and the cast also features the talents of Vondie Curtis Hall and Clarence Williams III, the latter as Ali's father Marcellus Clay. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

After holding up a convenience store, African American petty crook Joseph Grange (Giancarlo Esposito) races to his girlfriend's house to give her the money. Confronted by the girl's current bedmate, he gets into a scuffle and accidentally shoots the man. Now the object of a citywide manhunt, the desperate Grange stumbles onto a remote cabin occupied by Clair Ballard (Sharon Lawrence), a white woman. Though terrified at the prospect of being Joseph's hostage, Clair somehow senses that he is more frightened than she. Drawing upon lessons learned in her own troubled past, Clair tries to get at the root of Joseph's problems, not only hoping to defuse the situation but also to help the man come to peace with himself. And in the course of the next five hours, Clair also learns a lot about handling her own crises from her repentant captor. First telecast by NBC on October 5, 1997, Five Desperate Hours was based on a true story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eddie Murphy once again finds himself exchanging both wisecracks and gunfire in this comic action-thriller. Scott Roper (Murphy) is a hostage negotiator with the San Francisco Police Department; Roper has his own way of doing things, which doesn't always mean following department proceedure, but he's good at his job and has the respect of his colleagues. Roper has been given a new partner, Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport), a former SWAT team member whom Roper is training in the fine art of handing dangerous criminals with words as well as weapons; in his spare time, Roper tries to smooth out his stormy relationship with his girlfriend, Ronnie Tate (Carmen Ejogo), and deal with his addiction to gambling. However, Roper has his hands full when Michael Korda (Michael Wincott), a psychotic criminal, claims some hostages in the midst of a jewel heist. Roper finds it hard to be cool and detached in dealing with Korda, since the thief killed a cop who was one of his best friends, and one of the people taken by Korda happens to be Ronnie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In 1939 Hamburg, Germany, a group of teenagers express their rebellion against Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime through their affection for American swing music, British fashion, and Harlem slang. American and British big-band jazz records are among those banned by the Fuhrer, but the young men secretly get together with their friends to listen and dance to the music. As their escapades become increasingly bold, they each get into trouble with the authorities. Robert Sean Leonard stars as Peter, who ends up being forced -- by a prank -- into having to join the Hitler Youth with his friend Thomas (Christian Bale). They are both engineering students at the university, where Thomas' father was taken away for defending his Jewish colleagues. With Arvid (Frank Whaley), they pretend to be Nazi supporters by day while rebelling with the swing music by night. Kenneth Branagh, in an uncredited appearance, is a glib Nazi Gestapo chief who makes matters more difficult. Each of the boys must choose among family, safety, friendship, and freedom as politics impinges on their youthful exuberance, and the Nazis set them against one another. The movie was shot in Prague, directed by Thomas Carter from a script by Jonathan Marc Feldman, and released by Disney. Barbara Hershey appears as Peter's mother. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Under the Influence is a TV movie about an alcoholic, scripted by recovered alcoholic Joyce Rebeta-Burdett. Andy Griffith plays the head of an outwardly respectable New England family. Griffith drinks heavily, but the rest of the family sweeps his addiction under the rug. When Griffith lands in the hospital, he must come to grips with his illness--and the rest of the family must stop lying to each other and to themselves. Under the Influence is remarkable not only for the intelligent, unsensational handling of its subject, must also for Andy Griffith's convincing portrayal of a New Englander. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Miami Vice has been described as "the first cop show for the MTV generation." Brilliantly capturing the mood, the style, the rhythm, the pulsations, the bright electric colors, and the garish glitz of the early '80s, the weekly, 60-minute series was just a much an elongated music video (with a Jan Hammer score) as it was a crime drama -- and it set the standard for the scores of copycat series that followed in its wake. Set in (where else?) Miami, the series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as hard-nosed Miami-Dade PD vice detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. Crockett was a Ferrari-driving fashion trendsetter (how many millions of the series' young male fans emulated Sonny's no-socks, no-shave "look"?), who lived on a sailboat called St. Vitus' Dance with his pet gator, Elvis. Tubbs hailed from New York, and had come to Florida to track down the drug dealer responsible for his brother's murder. Like most such salt-and-pepper TV detective teams, Crockett and Tubbs did not always see eye to eye on details and procedure, but when they worked together as undercover cops in the sleazy underbelly of the Florida resort community, they almost invariably got results. And the criminal element -- which on this series consisting primarily of drug lords, white slavers, and illicit arms traders -- was well advised to stay out of their way. Though Sonny and Ricardo were pretty much the whole show, a few supporting characters were also worth noting, especially Edward James Olmos as the boys' mercurial superior officer Lt. Martin Castillo, Olivia Brown and Saundra Santiago as feisty female cops Trudy Joplin and Gina Navarro, and John Diehl as Larry Zito, Crockett and Tubbs' obligatory "orthodox" co-worker Calabrese. Making occasional appearances were Belinda Montgomery as Sonny's ex-wife, Caroline, and Sheena Easton as wife number two (albeit briefly), Caitlin Davies. Except for a short 1988 story arc in which an amnesiac Sonny assumed his "undercover" identity as drug dealer Sonny Burnett, things moved at a steady and reliable clip throughout the series' four-season run. Maybe it is true that series producer Michael Mann favored style over substance -- but what style! Miami Vice was seen on NBC from September 16, 1984, to July 26, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When NBC head honcho Brandon Tartikoff demanded a flashy weekly series with "MTV Cops," executive producer Michael Mann responded with Miami Vice. The stars were Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, members of Miami's Organized Crime Bureau. In the Miami Vice two-hour pilot, telecast September 16, 1984, Florida native Crockett and New York transplant Tubbs team for the first time; their mutual target is a nasty drug lord who has killed two people who were near and dear to the detectives. Gregory Sierra (replaced in the series by Edward James Olmos) costars as Crockett and Tubbs' superior. A triumph of style over substance, Miami Vice was for many years the most popular action series on network TV; it ran until July of 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama a black adolescent from back East comes to study medicine in a California university. He has a scholarship. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the Emmy-winning debut episode of The White Shadow, Chicago Bulls forward Ken Reeves (Ken Howard), forced to retire after a series of injuries, bypasses the offers of several more prestigious jobs, accepting instead an invitation from college buddy Jim Willis (played by Jason Bernard in the opener, Ed Bernard thereafter) to coach the mediocre basketball team at Carver High, the inner-city-LA high school where Willis is principal. Reeves is hardly welcomed with open arms by taciturn vice principal Sybil Buchanan (Joan Pringle), nor does he immediately win over the largely black student body. He does, however, have better luck bonding with his team members, beginning with James Hayward (Thomas Carter), whom Ken talks out of quitting school. As the team begins to win games under Reeves' tough-but-fair tutelage, the kids come to both respect and revere "The White Shadow." All the while, however, Ken's sister Katie (Robin Rose) and brother-in-law Bill (Jerry Fogel) nag him to stop trying to save the world and take a safer, more secure, and better-paying job at one of the suburbans schools. A subsequent episode finds Reeves having a showdown with player Curtis Jackson (Eric Kilpatrick) when he finds a liquor bottle in Curtis' locker. Another player, Milton Reese (Nathan Cook) may have to give up both the team and a scholarship when his girlfriend turns up pregnant. Briefly dropped from the team, Ricky "Go Go" Gomez (Ira Angustain) rejoins his old street gang. Player Abner Goldstein (Ken Michelman) undergoes a crisis of faith when his teammates seem indifferent to his grandmother's illness. And in a basically serious episode with comic undertones, the team decides to form a singing group--excluding the sensitive Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks), whose ear-piercing rendition of "My Girl" must be heard to be disbelieved. The problems tackled in the first season of The White Shadow go beyond the regular characters: A talented transfer student faces persecution because he is rumored to be homosexual; a hot college prospect turns out to be illiterate, a product of the "slide 'em through and no one will notice" school of athletic promotion; and while subbing for another teacher, Reeves finally comes to grips with the fact that not every troubled student is capable of being "saved"--especially after one such student tries to rape Ms. Buchanan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Only the aristocratic Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) would disdain pen and paper to write a letter home to his parents, choosing instead to tape-record his message. Hoping that his influential family will pull strings to get him transferred, Charles bitterly describes the 4077th as a "cesspool", prompting retaliatory action from Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and B.J. (Mike Farrell). Hawkeye in particular needs to let off some steam: He has spent several fruitless days trying to arrange a romantic rendezvous in Seoul. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide