
            Rural Louisiana, 1933. Its twilight. A father is walking across open grassland with his son and a hound dog. The father, Nathan Lee/ Nathan (Paul Winfield), is carrying a rifle; the boy, David Lee/ David (Kevin Hooks in his first feature), holds a lantern. Soon its night. The dog spots a raccoon and gives chase. Nathan and David try to keep up, calling the dog's name. Sounder chases the raccoon through fields, underbrush, and finally up a tree. Nathan and David catch up, clearly savoring a meal for the night. Nathan raises his rifle and shoots. He misses and the raccoon escapes. He blames himself for not killing the raccoon.They return to an old dilapidated cabin. Rebecca (Cicely Tyson), Nathan's wife and David's mother, is waiting for them. Nathan tells Rebecca they lost the 'coon. She says nothing.Nathan tells David that since he had a tough night, don't go to school the next day. David replies, 'But I want to go to school.'
David, who is about twelve or thirteen, is sent to bed. Rebecca notices that before he went to sleep, he ate half a bowl of walnuts that she picked for trading. Nathan: 'The boy is hungry, Rebecca'.Rebecca goes to bed and calls for Nathan. Silence.The next morning David and his younger brother and sister wake up to the smell of meat cooking on the stove. 'Where'd it come from?' Neither Rebecca nor Nathan respond, but they enjoy the breakfast.
Rebecca washes clothes for a local white woman, Miss Boatwright (Carmen Matthews). David, his brother and sister deliver the laundry to Miss Boatwright. She pays for the laundry and gives David a copy of the Three Musketeers. 'When you're finished reading it, we'll talk about it, y'hear.'
Nathan is pitching at a softball game. All his family is watching. He gets the final out and wins the game for his team. Ecstatic, the family returns home. The local sheriff (James Best) is in their cabin. He emerges with a side of meat.
Nathan is handcuffed in front of his wife and children. He is pushed into the back of a pickup truck with a deputy and the truck drives away.
Growling, Sounder takes off after the truck. The deputy seated next to Nathan raises his rifle. Nathan attempts to kick the rifle out of the deputy's hand. The gun goes off. Sounder is hit and disappears into high grass. David gives chase but can't find him.
Rebecca tries to visit Nathan in jail. The sheriff won't allow it. Visitors only on Sundays and holidays; women, never.
Rebecca is in the grocery store. She barters walnuts for groceries. The store owner is Mr. Perkins (Ted Airhart), who also owns the land the family works on. Perkins lambastes Rebecca for what Nathan did-namely, making him, Perkins, look bad. In addition, who's going to sharecrop for him if Nathan is in jail?It's Nathan's sentencing. Though Nathan's family are the only spectator's in the courtroom, they are seated at the back. Nathan Lee Morgan is found guilty of 'unlawful trespass and robbery' and sentenced to one year of hard labor. The camp where he is to serve his sentence is not mentioned. Flanked by two white deputies, Nathan is whisked out of the courtroom. No goodbye, no contact at all is allowed with his family.
Life goes on. The children are helping Rebecca with the laundry, and David continues to look for Sounder.
Rebecca and the children go to the station to see Nathan. Rebecca sends David in with a chocolate cake and instructs him to find out what camp Nathan will be sent to.David sees Nathan behind bars. They are both happy to see each other. David hands his Daddy the cake through the bars. They eat and talk. Then Nathan says he doesn't want them to come and visit anymore.Rebecca and the children work the fields. David reads The Three Musketeers to his brother and sister.One Sunday two friends are at Rebecca's home after church, for a meal. Ike (Taj Mahal) is playing the resonator guitar and Harriet (Sylvia 'Kuumba' Williams) starts dancing. The pastor arrives. He had been down to the courthouse, but the police didn't tell him 'nothing' about what camp Nathan was taken to. He warns Rebecca not to be bitter, but, like he's said to other women with similar 'misery or trials,' take it to God.
David is working the fields and hears a dog whimpering. Sounder returns.David drops off another load of clean laundry to Miss Boatwright's house. He asks if she can find out what camp his Daddy was sent to. Miss Boatwright: The courthouse has rules about things like that, but I'll ask around town about it. David is unconvinced: I'll see you tomorrow, Miss Boatwright. Miss. Boatwright: I'll find out where your Daddy is for you...
goes through the sheriff's files, but the sheriff returns and catches her.Miss Boatwright asks the sheriff where Nathan is being held. He refuses to tell her. He leaves the room to answer a telephone call. David appears. Miss Boatwright
Miss Boatwright leaves. David suspects that she saw where his father is being held. She denies it.Miss Boatwright turns up at the Morgan's home. 'The camp where Nathan is being held is called Wishbone Labor camp...' She sits with Rebecca and the children and attempts to find the camp on a map.David sets out with Sounder and a map to find his Daddy.After traveling a great distance, through heat and rain, through fields and across creeks, he comes across a group of black prisoners and their guards. He asks a guard if he knows his father, Nathan Lee Morgan. The guard replies 'Never heard of him, boy.'
Through a fence, David asks a group of prisoners if they've heard of his father. A guard overhears David. He raises his billy club and brings it down hard on David's hand. David flees, Sounder in tow.David gets lost and comes across a schoolhouse with black children and a black teacher. The teacher, Camille Johnson (Janet McLaughlin), invites him in. He asks her if he can wash the blood off his hand. Miss Johnson invites him to stay for class, and invites him to her home afterwards for a hot meal, 'then we can talk about how we can get you back home.'At Miss Johnson's home, David notices her many books. She shows him books on Harriet Tubman and Crispus Attucks, and reads from a work by W.E.B. DuBois. David listens attentively. When she's finished, he smiles: You're a nice lady, Miss Johnson.The following day David attends Miss Johnson's class. A student, Clarence, tells a story about saving his sister from drowning. Another student says he doesn't believe the story because Clarence can't swim. David says he believes Clarence's story, because his family, like Clarence, had to do what seemed impossible to survive, simply because they had to do it. They had no choice.That evening Miss Johnson tells David that she believed Clarence's story as well. When he confides in her that he believes he's failed for not finding his Daddy, she encourages him not to think that way. Not many little boys could have done what you've done, she tells him. David asks if he can come back and study with the other children.David returns home with books Miss Johnson gave him. He tells his Mama about Miss Johnson's offer to teach him at her school. Rebecca replies: 'Who's going to help on the farm? Well, maybe by that time your Daddy'll be back -if it's all right with him it's all right with me.'
Rebecca is on the porch, sewing. Sounder is lying under the porch. Suddenly he springs to his feet and slowly walks out to the front yard, barking. In the distance a solitary figure approaches on foot. Sounder scampers towards the figure. Nathan hobbles on one crutch. The family rushes to meet him. He throws down the crutch and embraces them. 'What happened to your leg, Daddy?' David asks. Dynamite blast. 'When I wasn't no more use to them, they took some time off my sentence and let me come home.'Nathan is hit by a piece of machinery while working the field. He collapses and needs time to get back to his feet.Ike shows up with a letter. Mr. Perkins told him to bring it over. It's from Miss Johnson for David. If he's going to come to her school, he should be there in about a week. David tells his Daddy he doesn't want to go, 'Daddy, you just got home. I wanna stay home and be with you.' Nathan replies, 'I wanna be with you too, but school is something you need, something's good for you, like good air to breathe. And I want you to have it. And that's the way it's gonna be.' David defiantly refuses to go and runs away. Rebecca chides Nathan for being rough with David. Nathan goes after David. They meet at a nearby creek.Nathan tells David of the accident at the labor camp, and his determination to survive and return to his family. He says: 'I'm gonna beat this trouble in my leg. That's what I want you to do. I want you to beat the life they got laid out for you in this place. Son, don't get too used to this place, cause wherever you is I'm gon' love you...'
    

Sounder


            
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The Color of Friendship

Heat Wave

Roots: The Gift

Glory & Honor


            International terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) is about to undergo plastic surgery to change his appearance in order to evade the law. Outside, federal agents and SWAT teams close in to arrest him. It becomes apparent that the plastic surgeon and his staff are in on the plan. Rane becomes suspicious and makes his escape, killing the surgeon in the process. After a harrowing chase through the city streets, Rane is finally apprehended.Haunted by the shooting death of his wife in a robbery, former police officer John Cutter (Wesley Snipes) has taken a job training flight attendants and security personnel in how to deal with dangerous situations including terrorists. During this particular session, his student is Marti Slayton (Alex Datcher), a flight attendant. When Marti disobeys his instructions, the pair have a brief confrontation.After class, Cutter sees an old friend, Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore), who is there with a job offer: vice-president for the anti-terrorism unit at Atlantic International Airlines, a major carrier. Cutter is at first reluctant, but Delvecchio and the airline's president (Bruce Greenwood) manage to win him over during lunch.Cutter boards Atlantic International Flight 163 to Los Angeles... and his new job. By coincidence, one of the flight attendants on this flight happens to be Marti. Also on board is Rane, in FBI custody, headed to Los Angeles to stand trial for his terrorist activities in the past. Several of Rane's people are aboard the plane, disguised as cabin crew and passengers. When Marti performs a head count after boarding is complete, Cutter happens to be passenger number 57.Mid-flight, Rane is freed when Sabrina Ritchie (Elizabeth Hurley), disguised as a flight attendant, shoots both FBI officers dead. Several other henchmen concurrently spring into action, stealing weapons from the dead officers and taking the plane's passengers hostage. Cutter, in the lavatory during the takeover, emerges and overpowers one of Rane's men. However, Rane responds by executing one of the passengers with a Berreta M9 pistol, making Cutter feel responsible for the man's death. During the confrontation, Cutter and Marti manage to escape, taking the elevator to the plane's lower deck. After a brief fight with one of Rane's men down there, Cutter initiates a fuel dump which forces the Tri Star Lockheed L-1011 to land at a small Louisiana airfield.Cutter manages to escape from the plane, but Marti is captured by another of Rane's men. On the tarmac, Cutter is quickly apprehended by local sheriff's deputies.Meanwhile, Rane has made contact with the local sheriff, Chief Biggs (Ernie Lively). Rane promises to release half the hostages in return for fuel and takeoff clearance. Rane also tells Biggs that Cutter is one of his men, a deserter. When the deputies bring Cutter before Chief Biggs, Biggs orders him taken into custody.As the passengers are being released, Rane and two of his men make their escape. Cutter overpowers the sheriff's deputies, frees himself from his handcuffs, and gives chase on a police motorcycle. Meanwhile, a team of FBI agents arrive, headed by Dwight Henderson (Robert Hooks), who angrily informs Chief Biggs of Cutter's true identity.At a nearby fair, Cutter manages to kill one of the henchmen and engages Rane in a fight just as police reinforcements arrive. Though back in custody, Rane tells the FBI and police that his remaining team aboard the plane will begin to execute the rest of the hostages if he is not returned to the plane and granted takeoff clearance.Cutter, Henderson, and Chief Biggs work out a plan for FBI snipers to take down Rane as he boards the plane, upon which FBI teams will storm the plane and deal with his remaining underlings on board. As Rane boards the plane with an FBI escort, Cutter gives the order to fire. However, the sniper bullets hit Rane's FBI escort, not Rane. Rane's second henchman has taken the place of the FBI snipers (who are shown lying unconscious or dead behind him), and he begins firing at the assembled police and agents. He is killed during the gunfight, but not before Rane makes it safely aboard and the plane begins to take off.With the help of Chief Biggs, Cutter barely manages to get aboard the moving plane via its landing gear. Once aboard, he quickly dispatches Rane's remaining two henchmen, then engages Rane in a prolonged fistfight. Gunfire in the cabin causes explosive cabin decompression, resulting in the main cabin door exploding outward, leaving the cabin open to the sky. As Cutter and Rane continue to fight, they head closer to the open cabin door. Cutter eventually kicks Rane out through the open door, and Rane plunges to his death.The plane lands safely at the Louisiana airfield for the second time that day. Amid congratulations and celebration, Marti and Cutter make their quiet escape into the distance hand in hand.
    

Passenger 57

Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze

Mutiny

Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story


            Against all odds, two teenagers--one African-American and one Puerto Rican--fall in love and learn about life in NYC's Spanish Harlem (Josiah Howard, "Blaxploitation cinema: The Essential Reference Guide.")
    

Aaron Loves Angela

Black Dog


            Charles Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Mark Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) are two convicts who end up shackled together due to fighting, the pervert Mill who incited the fight then steals a gun from an officer and wipes out half of the officers. Piper and Dodge take off and soon the Attorney General's office has U.S. Marshal Pat Schiller (Robert John Burke) on the case.Informed of the escape, local cop Matthew "Gib" Gibson (Will Patton) starts getting suspicious of the feds' interest in Dodge, who Gibson had earlier arrested. Gibson finds that Dodge has a hidden computer disk that contains information that could be very damaging to Cuban crime boss Frank Mantajano (Michael Nader).Piper, who turns out to be a cop on the case, and Dodge must stay out of the clutches of Mantajano's hit man Rico Santiago (Victor Rivers), and corrupt federal agents who want to retrieve the disk.
    

Kevin Hooks

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