Michael Cavanaugh Movies

Having shot one guest who insisted upon leaving the hotel, Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth) demands "absolute quiet and absolute cooperation" from the rest. She tells them that medical assistance is on the way, and orders them back to their rooms. The NHS team arrives in their HAZMAT suits and begins testing everyone for the virus. She gets Alvers (Lothaire Bluteau) to describe his employer, and after cross-referencing that description with a list of Jack's (Kiefer Sutherland) contacts, they determine that the mastermind behind the virus plot is Stephen Saunders (Paul Blackthorne), a British Secret Service agent whom Jack believed was killed in Kosovo. Gael (Jesse Borrego) is suffering horribly. Michelle offers him the chance to end his life quickly. She also convinces Tony (Carlos Bernard) to send a package of suicide capsules to the hotel. Chappelle (Paul Schulze), who is following the money trail to find Saunders, suggests to a distraught Tony that he proceed as though Michelle was already dead, and "make it about revenge." Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), struggling with whether or not to raise the threat level and close the airports, receives a package from Saunders, containing an untraceable cell phone. Saunders calls him and demands that he immediately call a press conference, during which he is to use the phrase "the sky is falling." In the interest of buying time, Palmer does as he's told. With help of Trevor (Simon Templeman) from MI6, Jack tracks down Diana White (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick), an associate of Saunders, but Jack's interrogation is interrupted when the MI6 offices are assaulted. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

As the third-season finale of 24 begins, the subway station has been shut down, and agents are searching and photographing all the male passengers who fit the profile of the terrorist. At one point, Chase (James Badge Dale) tells Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) that he's decided to transfer out of field work in order to salvage his relationship with Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), rather than develop the kind of emotional detachment that Jack says is a requirement of the job. While Tony (Carlos Bernard) is trying to defend his efforts to save Michelle's (Reiko Aylesworth) life, Michelle has a tender moment with him, and convinces Hammond (Randle Mell) to let him run tactical on the operation to catch the terrorist carrying the last vial of the virus. Gael's widow, Theresa (Kamala Lopez-Dawson), is arriving at CTU to claim his belongings, while Saunders (Paul Blackthorne) is brought in to study the photos being transmitted from the subway station. Unfortunately, the grieving Theresa sees him, realizes who he is, and shoots him before he can identify Arthur Rabens (Salvator Xuereb). Rabens manages to escape from the station, leading Jack and Chase on a high-speed pursuit, which ends when Rabens abandons his car and runs into a middle school. Jack and Chase deal with terrified teachers and students in their frantic search for Rabens. Chase finds him, and as the detonator counts down, he's forced to handcuff himself to the device in order to make sure that Rabens doesn't escape with it. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

This 2001 TV docudrama relates the story of tennis' 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" between Wimbledon champions Billie Jean King (Holly Hunter) and Bobby Riggs (Ron Silver), an event considered by many to be an early victory for feminism. Riggs, 20 years past his prime, lives to wager on anything and everything. Seeing the rise of feminism, he decides he can make some money by challenging top female players, 30 years his junior, into exhibition matches. His first choice for an opponent is Billie Jean King, but she turns him down because she is too busy organizing the members of the female tennis tour into a de facto union, and winning tennis tournaments. After Bobby defeats the number one female tennis player in the world, Margaret Court, King realizes she needs to beat him. Following months of hype in which Bobby's bluster is matched at every point by Billie's confidence, the two face off in the Astrodome before a huge live and television audience. When Billie Beat Bobby was written and directed by Jane Anderson who had previously written The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom, which also featured Holly Hunter in the title role. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Reggie Rock Bythewood makes his directorial debut with this sharp comedy-drama about love, compromise, and TV. The film opens with the parallel childhoods of Tomasina "Tommy" Crawford (Nicole Ari Parker) and George Washington (Isaiah Washington). Both were utterly shaped by television -- watching Roots was one of the few times that Tommy's parents stopped fighting long enough to sit on the couch together, while George was traumatized by being banned from TV for a month after swiping some church donation cash. As adults, George is a programming executive at the WPX network where fledgling writer Tommy tries to pitch shows. On the strength of both her passion for her craft and her striking good looks, George decides to champion her show called "Just Us," a serio-comedy about a juvenile offender adopted by a judge. They shoot the pilot, the network greenlights the project, and eventually they fall in love. Even though Tommy longs to present her characters in an uncompromised, unvarnished manner, pressure from network execs and advertisers forces her to water down the plot. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Vince Connors (Michael Dudikoff) is an Air Force test pilot who has been helping to perfect the Mach 2 fighting jet, a state-of-the-art weapon which incorporates special stealth technology which makes the plane invisible to both radar and the human eye. However, a band of Libyan terrorists have somehow gotten wind of the new jet, and in a daring raid they steal the Mach 2. Connors and his partner Jannick (Gary Hudson) are quickly sent on a secret emergency mission to recover the Mach 2, where Connors discovers that the terrorists are not his only enemies. Black Thunder also features Frederic Forrest, Nancy Valen, and Richard Norton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the erotic thriller Illegal in Blue, Chris Morgan (Dan Gauthier) is a young policeman who confronts the harsh reality that he must compromise his ideals to get along in a world of moral ambiguity. When police officers split a large sum of confiscated illegal gambling money among themselves, Morgan reports it to Internal Affairs. He starts receiving death threats, and the police department suspends him without pay. Morgan begins a steamy love affair with a stunning nightclub singer, Kari Truitt (Stacey Dash), whose husband is found murdered. Morgan's suspension is lifted, and he goes back to the police department to face open hostility from officers who want him to soften his testimony against the policemen who split the gambling money. He also gets caught up in the murder investigation, where his new lover is the prime suspect, and he soon finds that he must make some difficult choices. A well-integrated musical score, moody shots of the city at night, and lyrical love scenes help to make Illegal in Blue somewhat better than many similar low-budget efforts. ~ All Movie Guide

Scott Bakula inagurates an illicit romance with the very married Chelsea Field. When Field's husband turns up murdered, Bakula can't help but feel that his bedmate is responsible. Should he act upon his suspicions, or just live for the moment? Here's an added wrinkle: Bakula is a psychiatrist. Never entirely predictable, this steamy melodrama contains what used to be called a "wow finish". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner return as the Harts, married private eyes who in this made-for-TV movie interrupt their carefree lives to investigate a group of corrupt government contractors. Lionel Stander also returns as their sidekick Max, with Mike Connors and Ken Howard as guest stars. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Nicollette Sheridan plays a stripper in the made-for-TV Somebody's Daughter. Together with her bodyguard/lover Nick Mancusco, Sheridan becomes involved in a murder. The subsequent official cover-up and the attendant police corruption places Nicollette's future seriously in doubt. In fact, she escapes death so often before the climax that we feel as though we've stumbled into a full-color, streetwise remake of a Pearl White serial. Somebody's Daughter was first telecast September 20, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With Marilyn Monroe permanently unavailable for comment, everybody and his uncle has come out of the woodwork since 1962 claiming an intimate relationship with the legendary film star (how did she ever find the time to be a film star?) Marilyn and Me is based on the reminiscences of one Robert Slatzer, who claimed to have been secretly married to Monroe back in her Norma Jean days. Jesse Dobson manages to keep a straight face as he recites his lines as Slatzer, while Susan Griffiths is as good a Monroe impersonator as any. Better still is Joel Grey as Marilyn's first and most influential agent Johnny Hyde, whose own close relationship with La Monroe is a bit easier to believe. Actress Terry Moore, who in the early 1950s was briefly groomed as a Monroe "substitute," plays a bit as Johnny Hyde's widow. Marilyn and Me is about as convincing as the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, and not nearly as entertaining. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though based on fact, the two-part TV movie False Arrest plays more like one of those Linda Blair "babes in prison" flicks. Donna Mills plays Joyce Lukezic, a well-off Phoenix businesswoman/homemaker accused of murder. She knows, and we know, that she didn't do it. The double homicide was the handiwork of her sleazy husband Robert Wagner, who works diligently behind the scenes to make certain his wife is convicted. And with the "guilty as charged" verdict, he leaves Joyce high and dry at the end of part one. Part two of False Arrest was telecast three days later, with Joyce fending off hostile and sexually abusive inmates, courting a nervous breakdown, and battling to have her conviction overturned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide