Wesley Snipes was an electrifying actor from the very beginning. He didn't exactly burst onto the scene in 1986 via the duo of Michael Ritchie's "Wildcats" and Joe Roth's "Streets of Gold," but, from the vantage point of my parents' living room, where I watched these movies many times on pay cable, I knew he was something special. He confirmed this and then some with his blazingly charismatic portrayal of pro baseball speedster Willie Mays Hayes in "Major League." Two years later, he turned in one of the greatest gangster performances of all time as Nino Brown in "New Jack City," at which point every new Snipes movie was an event .

Snipes proved to be a savvy movie star, often going for two-handers so as to protect his commerciality (i.e., if a movie bombed, he wouldn't shoulder the bl

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