Yaphet Kotto

When a small-town sheriff witnesses what he believes to be an attempted kidnapping, his effort to save the beautiful damsel in distress sets him down a wild path of comic mishap. The story centers on a small-town Sheriff who witnesses what he believes is a kidnapping, and rushes to rescue a woman. The kidnappers turn out to be F.B.I. Agents assigned to protect her and deliver her to a big Enron-type corruption trial in Chicago, but are later found to be on the take and are villains who are bent on killing her. —anonymous

A rogue cop joins an elite L.A.P.D. unit who secretly operate as a vigilante death squad, but soon begins to question their methods. Jeff Powers is the newest member of a very elite and very secret LAPD division. Their mission is to target important criminals and to get them to stop. Police brutality is not a known term for the division and they will stop at nothing to get the job done, even if it means murder. —Steve Richer <sricher@sympatico.ca>

Dream-haunting Freddy Krueger returns once again to prowl the nightmares of Springwood's last surviving teenager, and of a woman whose personal connection to Krueger may mean his doom. In part six of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, dream monster Freddy Krueger has finally killed all the children of his hometown, and seeks to escape its confines to hunt fresh prey. To this end, he seeks his child. However, someone discovers the demonic origin of Krueger's powers and meets him head-on in a final showdown.

A bounty hunter pursues a former Mafia accountant who is also being chased by a rival bounty hunter, the F.B.I., and his old mob boss after jumping bail. Bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is sent to find and return bail jumper and former Mafia accountant, Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin). The FBI has had no success in locating The Duke, so when Jack finds him in next to no time, they are a little embarrassed. In order to collect his $100,000 fee, Jack must take The Duke from New York to Los Angeles. However, the Mafia and the FBI have other ideas, as does Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton), a rival bounty hunter. On their long cross-country trip to LA, the two get to know each other and they build up a strange friendship. —Rob Hartill Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a tough bounty hunter has to deliver Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), who embezzled $15 million from the Mob, but the FBI is after The Duke to testify - the Mob is after him for revenge - and Walsh is after him to just shut up. Will they survive each other and all the other pursuers to a happy ending? —Benjamin Boey Jack Walsh is a Los Angeles based bounty hunter. It's a job he hates, he a former Chicago police officer who was, if rumors are true, run out of town by mob boss Jimmy Serrano. The reasons for his release from the force led to the dissolution of his marriage, his wife and daughter who he has not seen in nine years but who he still loves. Eddie Moscone, a bail bondsman for who Jack often works, convinces him to pick up a specific bail jumper, Jonathan Mardukas, whose whereabouts are unknown. Although Jack negotiates a lucrative contract with Eddie for this job - Eddie who will lose his business if Jonathan is not brought in within five days - Eddie believes Jonathan having been Serrano's accountant should be enough of a drawing card for Jack, Jonathan who embezzled $15 million from his mob boss. Using some contacts and a stolen ID, Jack is able to locate and capture Jonathan on the first day in New York. Out of circumstance, Jack and Jonathan are forced to travel by the proverbial planes, trains and automobiles to get back to LA as many others are also on their tail trying to get their hands on Jonathan. They include: Alonzo Mosely, an FBI agent, and his associates, who have been leading an operation against Serrano for several years; Serrano and his men who do not want to see Jonathan testify in court; and Marvin Dorfler, a rival bounty hunter who Eddie also hires just in case Jack fails, there being no love lost between Jack and Marvin. Some try to persuade Jack to give Jonathan up, using the "carrot" of more money than Eddie would be paying, while others have their own moles to be able to follow Jack and Jonathan's whereabouts as they snake west across the country. But the biggest obstacle in Jack getting Jonathan back to Los Angeles within five days may be mild mannered Jonathan himself. Beyond knowing he is an easy target for Serrano if he is in prison and thus who does whatever he can can either to persuade Jack not to turn him in or elude him, Jonathan, based on differences in personality with Jack including having a multitude of phobias, may drive Jack crazy and crazier the longer they are within each other's company. —Huggo A bounty hunter, Jack Walsh, is tasked with tracking down a bail jumper for a large fee. The man he is tracking is the accountant of a major mob boss, a mob boss he had a run in with when he was a policeman in Chicago. It is soon apparent that tracking down the accountant is the least of his worries: the mob and the FBI are also after him. —grantss

In a dystopian America, a policeman is wrongly convicted and forced to join a TV show where criminals must fight for their lives and their freedom while being hunted by professional killers.

When three automotive factory workers who're struggling financially try to steal from their own labor union, they discover corruption, and reluctantly decide to use this information for blackmail. Three workers, Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto), are working at a car plant and drinking their beers together. One night, when they steal away from their wives to have some fun, they get the idea to rob the local union's bureau safe. First they think it is a flop, because they get only six hundred dollars out of it, but then Zeke realizes that they also have gotten some "hot" material. They decide to blackmail their union. The best reason for that is the union itself. All three are provoked by the fact that the union claims to have lost ten thousand dollars by their robbery. —Oliver Heidelbach Three auto workers at a car factory in Detroit rail against the injustice they see and their lot in life. They are barely getting by and factory management are always hounding them and generally making their life a misery. Their union should be looking out for them but does nothing. They then decide to rob the union's head office but find something much more valuable: evidence of shady dealings by the union. However, what should have been their ticket to a reasonable amount of money turns into a life-threatening situation. —grantss

Patty Butler (Susan Blakely), is a very comely young police officer who is pretending to be a runaway girl with the nickname of "Chicklet," and has been given permission by the department to be the live-in girlfriend of Thomas 'Stick' Henderson (Tony King), a suspected drug dealer, so that the police can gather evidence against him. To back up her cover story, Detective Bo Lockley (Michael Moriarty) has been given what should be an almost impossible assignment: without being told she is actually an undercover police officer, he is instructed to spend a few weeks trying to find Chicklet. Bo openly looking for and trying to find her will convince Stick that his girlfriend really is a runaway. Amazingly, Bo is actually an excellent detective and finds her in the sleazy underbelly of the city. Bo is then thanked by his supervisor, Richard 'Crunch' Blackstone (Yaphet Kotto) and told to go back to his previous assignment. Either infatuated with Chicklet or not able to just allow her to be abandoned by the system, he goes to Stick's loft to try and rescue her. In the process, Bo and Stick become engaged in a firefight, whereupon Stick is able to escape the apartment, and Bo ends up chasing Stick, running across town barefoot, carrying a handgun and dressed only in boxer shorts, into a department store, and are trapped in a Mexican standoff in one of the department store elevators. Eventually the police barricade the elevator, and Crunch grabs him when Bo and Stick leave through the elevator's emergency exit ceiling panel. Bo having been pulled to safety, the police then open fire on Stick, killing him. In the aftermath of the firefight and the subsequent killing of Stick, it is discovered that Officer Butler was killed in Stick's loft by Bo, and an investigation has to be made as to whether he was negligent. As a result of the investigation, it's determined that she was killed as a result of Bo trying to defend himself from Stick shooting at him, and thus the shooting was accidental. Bo, however, was so depressed by what he had done that he hung himself in his jail cell before he finds out that it was an accident. The movie is, in effect, a police report of an incident where a police officer was shot by another officer who later committed suicide in jail, and a suspected perpetrator being killed in a public place (the department store), being made to the Police Commissioner, which is where the title of the film came from.

Three British MI6 agents, including one "on loan" to the American government, are killed under mysterious circumstances within 24 hours while monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique. One is killed at a meeting of the United Nations. The second is stabbed on a street in New Orleans while observing a restaurant called Fillet of Soul; his body is secreted in the coffin of a passing funeral procession. The third agent is killed on the island of San Monique during a voodoo rites ceremony; the high priest uses a poisonous snake to kill the man. James Bond (Sir Roger Moore) is ordered by his boss, M (Bernard Lee), to investigate the deaths and their connections to Kananga. He is sent to New York City, where the first agent was killed where Kananga is currently visiting the UN. As soon as Bond arrives in New York City, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter (David Hedison) of the CIA and Bond narrowly escapes a potentially fatal car wreck. The driver's killer leads Bond to Mr. Big, a gangster who runs the chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr. Big that Bond first meets Solitaire (Jane Seymour), a beautiful virgin Tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. Big orders his henchman to kill Bond, who, with the assistance of Felix Leiter, manages to escape unscathed. Bond follows Kananga to San Monique. In his hotel room, during a bath, a poisonous snake is set loose in an attempted assassination attempt. He subsequently meets Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), a CIA double agent, who is subsequently murdered after Bond suspects her of working for Kananga. Later he meets the boatman Quarrel, Jr. (Roy Stewart) who takes him to the home of Solitaire. Using a stacked deck of tarot cards only showing "The Lovers," Bond seduces her. Solitaire loses her virginity to Bond and also loses her foresight abilities and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga. After discovering heroin poppy fields, Bond and Solitaire commandeer a double-decker bus and are chased by Kanaga's henchmen and local police. They escape the island on Quarrel Jr's boat and heads for Louisiana. When they arrive, Bond escapes Kananga's men in a small craft airport with a student female pilot. Unfortunately, the plane never leaves the ground. Nevertheless, he meets up with Felix Leiter and the two go to the New Orleans Fillet of Soul restaurant. When Leiter leaves their table momentarily, the table drops down into the floor, where Mr. Big awaits Bond. Big harshly demands to know if Bond had slept with Solitaire. Bond says that the answer is a secret between himself and Solitaire and he'll only reveal the truth to Kananga himself. Big suddenly pulls prosthetic makeup from his face, revealing that he is actually Kananga. Kananga explains that he is producing two metric tonnes of heroin on San Monique and is protecting the poppy fields with camouflage and by exploiting locals' fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego, Mr. Big, Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free of charge on the market, which will drive all the other drug cartels out of business, increase the number of addicts, and give Kananga a monopoly of the heroin market. Using the serial number on Bond's watch, Kananga tests Solitaire's truth-saying powers. She fails but Kananga does not reveal the outcome in front of Bond; after Bond is escorted out of the room, he chastises Solitaire harshly for her betrayal and leaves her in the hands of Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) to be sacrificed in ritual on San Monique. Kananga turns Bond over to Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris), a thug with a mechanical arm, who takes Bond to the Farm, a community in the Louisiana backwoods filled with alligators and crocodiles and housing one of Kanaga's heroin labs. Bond is left on a small island to be food for the gators but he jumps on the backs of the reptiles to reach the shore. He sets the Farm on fire, killing some of Kananga's men. He steals a speedboat leading to a furious chase with Kananga's men in pursuit and the local sheriff, J.W. Pepper (Clifton James), and the Louisiana state police trying to blockade Bond and his pursuers. Bond evades them all and is met by Leiter who informs him that Kananga, Samedi and Solitaire left for San Monique. Bond goes back to San Monique, ordering Quarrel Jr. to plant explosives in the poppy fields. Bond interrupts the voodoo sacrifice, rescuing Solitaire. While Bond holds the ritual attendees at bay, Baron Samedi pops up from a grave. Bond shoots him, finding he's a ceramic decoy, however, the real Samedi appears. Bond fights the man briefly and the villain ends up falling in a coffin full of poisonous snakes, seemingly bitten to death. Bond and Solitaire travel below ground into Kananga's lair. They find Kananga, who tells Bond that his wet suit was found and that the explosives he used on the poppy fields have done too little damage to interrupt production. Bond and Solitaire are lashed to a small crane over a shark pool; Kananga slashes Bond's forearm several times, drawing blood to bait the sharks. Using his magnetic watch, Bond retrieves a gas pellet from his shark gun and cuts the ropes holding him. After a brief fight with Kananga, he forces the gas pellet in Kananga's mouth, rapidly inflating the villain who floats to the top of the room and explodes. After the job is done, Felix leaves Bond and Solitaire on a train out of the country. Tee Hee makes a last attempt on Bond's life and is ejected from their train compartment at high speed. However Baron Samedi is seen perched on the nose of the speeding train in his voodoo ensemble and laughing heartily.

A trade of drug money is occurring between two Italians (from the South of 110th street in New York) and three blacks (from Harlem to the North of 110th Street). Suddenly, two men (Paul Benjamin & Ed Bernard) uniformed as police officers knock on the door. When they enter one of the two men dressed as cops holds the drug dealers hostage with a machine gun. When one of the black hostages reaches for his pistol, the man shoots everyone in the room to death, except his partner. When the two killers rush out with the drug money, they hop in a car with their driver (Antonio Vargas). When the driver nervously hits a few of the cars around them, it attracts the attention of an African-American cop, who is shot to death by the man with the machine gun before he realizes what's going on. Another cop (this one white) comes upon the situation and pulls his gun, but is fatally hit by the getaway car. Seemingly before the cops are aware of the situation, the two crime syndicates are aware that they've been ripped off. Mafioso Nick D'Salvio(Anthony Franciosa) is coached by his Don (who is also his father-in-law) that this is an opportunity to keep the blacks in check and that he must severely punish the men responsible for the robbery and the murder of the two Italians. D'Salvio pays a visit to the black crime boss in Harlem, Doc Johnson (Richard Ward). Johnson promises to put his main henchman, Shevvy (Gilbert Lewis), on the the trail of the thiefs. But D'Salvio threateningly intones that, while Shevvy may find them, the punishment must be left to the Italians. Johnson, unintimidated, taunts D'Salvio as a "punk errand boy", causing D'Salvio to try to attack him. However, D'Salvio's henchman hold him back and calm him before they leave. The police have finally arrived and are all over the building where the drug theft and massacre occurred. Aging Cpt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) arrives prepared to oversee the investigation. However Mattelli's chief lets him know to his chagrin that the much younger (and African-American) Lt. Pope (Yaphet Kotto) will be leading the investigation. Pope mistrusts Mattelli because he rightly believes Mattelli to be a drunk, a racist, and a crooked cop who doesn't hestitate to beat up suspects or even crime witnesses. The mostly black residents in the surrounding neighborhood of the crime (although we know many of them witnessed the crime) refuse to disclose information to the police. However, they gladly let Doc Johnson know the vehicle that was used in the getaway. Shevvy and D'Salvio use this track down it's new owner, Henry J. Jackson, who we recognize as the getaway driver of earlier. Meanwhile, tipped off to the vehicle's location, Mattelli and Pope have the car pulled out of the Hudson River. However, before they can figure out who was driving, Shevvy and D'Salvio have tracked down Jackson to a whorehouse. D'Salvio smashes Jackson in the face with a glass and then beats him to the floor until Jackson is a bloody pulp. Before they leave, Shevvy is given Jackson's clothes and finds a note from a dry cleaners. The police find Jackson tied up in crucifixion and that he's been castrated. Pope and Mattelli try to get Jackson to tell them the identity of his killer in an ambulance, but Jackson is only able to scream in agony before he dies. Joe Logart (Bernard), who we recognize as one of the thieves dressed as a cop at the beginning, nervously sees the TV report of Jackson's murder. He is an employee at the same dry cleaner that Jackson had a note from. He goes to see the other, more trigger happy thief, Jim Harris (Benjamin), to let him know that he's going to try and leave the area. Logart suggests that Harris should escape as well, but Harris refuses and wishes Logart well. We find that Harris lives with his girlfriend and has told her about the robbery. Harris is a 42-year-old ex-con and tells her that there's no way he could make money other than by crime. Mattelli takes Pope to Doc Johnson's office. Mattelli warns Johnson "no more crucifixions!" However, Johnson is again unfazed and denies involvement in Jackson's murder. For Pope's benefit, Johnson announces that Mattelli has long since been paid off by Johnson for looking the other way in numerous crimes. Mattelli nearly attacks Johnson but sadly backs away. Johnson makes it clear that he no longer wants to deal with Mattelli and offers Pope to take his place. However, the honest Pope tells Johnson to take his money and "stick it up your ass". When Shevvy tries to manhandle Mattelli out of Johnson's office, Mattelli assaults him and beats him badly. However, Pope manages to pull Mattelli away. Logart, bags all packed, hails a cab. The cab driver acts suspicuously and calls into say that this be his "last fare of the night". Suddenly, two cars, containing D'Salvio, Shevvy and their henchmen, pull in front of the taxi. The cab driver runs off, but Logart manages to jump to the driver's seat and drive off. He runs down one of Shevvy's men and shoots another. Logart speeds off, but hits traffic with the two cars coming after him. Logart abandons the taxi and runs into an empty high rise being built. He manages to kill a couple more henchman, but Logart is soon surrounded and overpowered on one of the highest floors. D'Salvio and his men hang Logart by his ankles and swing him off the edge of the building. They threaten to let him fall to his death if he doesn't disclose the identity of his crime partner. He eventually does tell them about Harris, but D'Salvio still lets Logart die. Mattelli and Pope go to visit Jackson's estranged wife. They let her know that Jackson has been killed, but Pope claims it was in a car accident. When they question her about Jackson's associates, she recalls Jim Harris's name. Going through police records, Mattelli and Pope narrow the various suspects down to the most likely "Jim Harris". Mattelli soon offers to confess to his various illegal activities so Pope can take his position, but the angry Pope refuses, saying he wants to become Captain on his own terms. Harris leaves his girlfriend's apartment to go to an abandoned hideout nearby. However, he seems to have forgotten his medicine and goes into a seisure. When his girlfriend rushes to his hideout to give him his medicine, she is followed (without her knowledge) by Shevvy, who concludes that she must be going to see Harris. Shevvy and Johnson tip off D'Salvio to Harris's location, after which Johnson claims to know how this situation is going to turn out. The next morning, D'Salvio and a few henchmen go to the building where Harris and his girlfriend are hiding. D'Salvio knocks on his door and claims to be police. Harris immediately opens fire through the door, killing one of D'Salvio's henchmen. D'Salvio returns fire into the apartment, shooting and killing Harris's girlfriend. D'Salvio and Harris shoot it out through the hideout door. Harris eventually shoots D'Salvio and then knocks him over with the door, sending D'Salvio down the stairs to smash his face through a window . D'Salvio dies screaming. Harris goes out the street and mows down all of D'Salvio's henchmen with his machinegun. When a cop car pulls up, Harris also guns down both cops inside. Soon, the building is surrounded by cops, including Mattelli and Pope, and Harris takes refuge inside. The police trade fire with him until he is cornered on the roof. We see an unnoticed Shevvy crouched on the roof a nearby building, armed but seemingly enjoying the violent spectacle. Although Harris kills a few more cops, some snipers shoot him in the side and the arm. Harris throws his bag of hard-fought drug money over the side of the building into a crowd of onlookers, who fight over it. Mattelli climbs up to confront Harris, but lose his footing and is soon at Harris's gun point. However, before Harris can kill Mattelli, Pope arrives, shooting and finally killing Harris. Shevvy sets up his sniper gun on a mount and then shoots Mattelli. Mattelli falls into Pope's hands and dies.

Millionaire businessman-sportsman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) accomplishes a perfect crime by orchestrating four men to steal $2,660,527.62 from a Boston bank ($22,389,167 in 2022 dollars), along with a fifth man Erwin who drives the getaway car with the money and dumps it in a cemetery trash can. None of the men ever meet Crown face to face, nor do they know or meet each other before the robbery. For planning, men were summoned to a hotel room, where they faced a set of bright lights, and a man speaking into a microphone. They are promised a payment on $50,000 in monthly installments, so they don't spend it all quickly. Thomas asks Erwin to buy a used car, with cash money provided by Thomas. The 4 men are Carl (Yaphet Kotto), Dave (Sam Melville), Benjy (Todd Martin) and Abe (Adison Powell). Thomas coordinates the actions of the 4 men via public telephones. Abe and Carl get into a bank and take control of an elevator. Dave takes control of the security room. They take possession of a money trolley, when it is being moved by the elevator to the vault. Once the money is in their possession, they move it to Erwin's car waiting outside. Erwin dumps the money in a garage can in a cemetery and then changes his number plates. Crown retrieves the money from the trash can after secretly following the driver of the getaway car. He deposits the money into an anonymous Swiss bank account in Geneva, making several trips, never depositing the money all at once so as not to draw undue attention to his actions. The police are not able to find anything. All suspects were wearing sunglasses and hats. They cannot find the getaway car. Independent insurance investigator Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway) is contracted to investigate the heist; she will receive 10% of the stolen money if she recovers it. Vicki believes that the money has been moved to numbered accounts in Switzerland. The money would have to be moved by plane, and in multiple trips. She asks the Boston police to make a list of people who made multiple trips to Switzerland recently. Vicki believes that the robbery was masterminded by an unknown entity, who orchestrated the robbers, who probably never even met each other before the day of the heist. Vicki runs an advertisement in the papers for news on the heist, against a reward of $25,000. When Thomas first comes to her attention as a possible suspect, she intuitively recognizes him as the mastermind behind the robbery, and shortly thereafter guesses that he organized the robbers so none of the men knew him or met each other. Thomas does not need the money, and in fact masterminded the robbery as a game. Vicki makes it clear to him that she knows that he is the thief and that she intends to prove it. They start a game of cat and mouse, with the attraction between them evident. Vicki declares to Thomas that she is after him. Thomas already has $4 Million as net worth, and there is no motive for him to steal any more. Their relationship soon evolves into an affair, complicated by Vicki's vow to find the money and help detective Eddy Malone (Paul Burke) bring the guilty party to justice. The reward offer entices the wife of the bank robbery's getaway driver, Erwin Weaver (Jack Weston) to "fink" on him for $25,000 ($210,383 in 2022 dollars). There are 2 witnesses who saw Erwin drive away from the bank and Erwin paid for the Ford station wagon in cash. Erwin gets monthly payments into his bank account, from a numbered account in Geneva. Vicki finds out that he was hired by a man he never saw, but whose voice he heard (via a microphone). She tries putting Erwin in the same room as Thomas, but there is no hint of recognition on either one's part. Thomas knows that by now his home has been bugged by the police. He invites Vicki for a game of chess. They end up having sex. Vicki asks Eddy to keep the pressure on Thomas. Vicki believes that Thomas is bound to make a mistake. While Vicki continues to spend personal time with Thomas. News of their romance reaches Eddy. Eddy cannot make up his mind about what Vicki is up to. Eddy tells Vicki that Thomas has been cheating on her. He says that after leaving Vicki, Thomas goes to meet another girl. However, while Vicki is clearly closing in on Thomas, using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as leverage against his liquid assets, he forces her to realize that she is also becoming hemmed-in by her emotions. When she (seemingly) persuades him to negotiate an end, his point is proven when Eddy stubbornly refuses to make any deal. Thomas organizes another robbery exactly like the first with different accomplices and tells Vicki where the "drop" will be, because he has to know for sure that she is on his side. The robbery is successful, but there are gunshots, and the viewer is left with the impression that people might have been killed, raising the stakes for Vicki's decision. Vicki and the police stake out the cemetery, where they watch one of the robbers make the drop and they wait for Thomas to arrive so they can arrest him. However, when his Rolls-Royce arrives, she sees that Thomas has sent a messenger in his place, with a telegram asking her to bring the money and join him - or if not, "you keep the car". She tears the telegram to bits and throws the pieces to the wind, looking up at the sky with tears in her eyes. Crown flies away in a jet.

The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one. After a card shark is caught cheating, he is taken out and lynched by the drunkards he was playing against. Soon afterwards, the men who were in the lynch mob start being murdered, one after another; all by hanging, strangling, or smothering. Who will be killed next and who is responsible? Is it one of the original party seeking to cover their accursed deed, or perhaps the mysterious Rev. Jonathan Rudd, who has recently arrived in town?