Denis Forest Movies

Top-notch action sequences and exciting stunt work highlight this fast-moving thriller. John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a top agent in the U.S. Marshalls' Witness Protection Program; it's his job to "erase" the pasts of Federal witnesses under his watch and deal with anyone who tries to hurt them. Kruger's latest assignment is to protect Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), who while working for a major weapons manufacturing firm discovered evidence that the company was selling new, high-tech weapons to intentional terrorists groups with the cooperation of a faction of enemy agents within the United States government. However, when Kruger discovers that the Witness Protection Program has a rat in the house -- and that rat is his boss, U.S. Marshall Robert Deguerin (James Caan) -- Kruger has to guard his own life while trying to protect Lee's. The supporting cast is highlighted by James Coburn, Robert Pastorelli, and James Cromwell. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Fraser (Paul Gross) is unexpectedly reunited with Victoria Metcalf (Melina Kanakaredes), the only woman he has ever truly loved--even though he'd been forced to arrest her the last time they met. Now, Victoria claims that she is being pursued by her former partner in crime Jolly (Denis Forrest), who thinks that the woman has absconded with $500,000 from a recent bank robbery. Protesting her innocence, Victoria turns to Fraser for protection--but could she have another, more sinister agenda in mind? First broadcast on Canadian television, this episode made its US debut on June 2, 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Cliffhanger, Sylvester Stallone plays Gabe Walker, a member of a mountain-climbing rescue team. Gabe is haunted by an incident from his past when he couldn't save the girlfriend of his best friend, Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker), from falling to her death. As the story begins, Gabe has left mountain-climbing rescue work and has set up business in Denver. He returns to the mountain rescue office to persuade his lover, Jessie (Janine Turner), to quit and come back to Denver with him. While he is begging Jessie to head out to Denver, things are happening in the skies overhead. A gang of professional crooks headed by psychotic Eric Qualen (John Lithgow) has hijacked a U.S. Treasury plane carrying millions of dollars. But the plane crashes, and the bad guys find themselves stranded on top of a mountain with the money (put into three cases) scattered around the wreckage and with no way to get down off the pinnacle to retrieve the cases. They put in a phony distress call that is received by the mountain rescue team. Gabe agrees to take part in one last rescue attempt, and they head up to help rescue the thieves. But Qualen has plans for the rescuers -- to force them to climb through the dangerous snow-covered peaks to find the three suitcases of cash. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

After a moderately successful first season in syndication, the H.G. Wells-based science fiction series War of the Worlds returns for a second season with several radical changes in place--and not merely the new title, War of the Worlds: The Second Invasion. As we shall see, the series has abruptly taken on the dimensions of two other entertainment properties: the Mad Max movies, and the briefly popular network sci-fi series V. As before, scientist Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) and his astrophysicist colleague Suzanne McCullough (Lynda Mason Green) continue to wage war against an army of extraterrestrial invaders, but not precisely the same invaders as in the previous season. It turns out that the dreaded Mortaxians, who had the ability to assume the bodies and identities of humans in order to carry out their dirty work undetected, were actually soldiers in the employ of an even stronger other-worldly race, the human Morthrai. Summarily exterminating the Mortaxians for failing to complete their mission of conquering the Earth, the Morthrai show up to finish the job--which is distressingly easy, inasmuch as the entire infrastructure of earthly society has apparently collapsed between Seasons One and Two, leaving the planet in a chaotic, dysfunctional state, with the "leadership" in the hands of local despots and scoundrels. (So much for Mad Max) Commandeering the Morthrai is the Hitlerlike Malzor (Denis Forest) and his beautiful-but-deadly consort Mana (Catherine Disher). Dictating the progress of the war against the humans is the "Joseph Mengele"-type scientist Ardix (Julian Richings), bent on "purifying" the earth by purging all undesirables. Malzor, Mana and Ardix are guided in their sinister ambitions by a jellyfish-shaped deity called The Eternal. (So much for V) Though he hadn't received much official support during Season One, Dr. Blackwood is almost completely on his own during Season Two in his Herculean efforts to ward off the invaders and save the world. Worse still, two of his former colleagues, computer whiz Norton Drake and Army colonel Paul Ironhorse, have been killed off. Luckily, Blackwood can still count on the help and support of his trusted aide Suzanne McCullough, as well as a newcomer to his team, ex-soldier John Kincaid (Adrian Paul). With their original headquarters destroyed, the alien fighters were forced literally underground, running their resistance movement from their city's sewer system. Sensing that the "improvements" wrought on Season Two of War of the Worlds were more hindrance than help, the producers decided to wrap things up permanently in the 44th and final episode "Knight Time", in which a clear victor in the Earth-Morthrai conflict is declared (as if we're going to tell you who it is!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The works of composer and choreographer Claude Vivier (1949-1983) are well-known in Quebec and in France. This docudrama explores three different times in his life and combines re-enactments with interviews with friends and associates. In addition to those, the film includes several of his compositions, including Lonely Child, and a number of erotic dance pieces. The composer was killed by a young man on the streets of Paris following a homosexual advance. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The Liberators, an ambitious 1987 entry in ABC's Disney Sunday Movie anthology series, was founded on fact. The film begins on a Kentucky plantation in the years before the Civil War. Robert Carradine, nephew of the plantation owner, has grown up with slave Larry B. Scott. Forced by the social structure of the era into a master/slave relationship, Carradine and Scott choose instead to head northward. Befriending a Quaker abolitionist (James Mainprize), the two friends become involved with the Underground Railroad, helping thousands of slaves escape to freedom. A romantic entanglement involving Scott and a lovely slave girl nearly costs the boys their own freedom as The Liberators races towards its climax. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With a script that is too anemic for the red-blooded actors featured here, this anorexic comedy moves slowly up and down the corporate ladder with the fortunes and misfortunes of several company men. Jack Issel (Judge Reinhold) gets a VIP position at INC in the PR department (business-speak). Suddenly the corporation's shady activities come to the fore -- especially when a U.S. plant is set to close for a move south of the border where labor is almost free. Enmeshed in these tangles, Jack is hardly prepared to fall in love with the leading activist against the plant closing -- but he does. Meanwhile, a lot of other subplots quickly dispose of potentially budding villains like Stedman (Danny DeVito) the inside trader -- too bad. DeVito and Don King (appearing as himself) would have made a great team. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide