DVD Review - August 10

By Damon Smith

New to rent on DVD/Blu-ray

DVD of the week

Trance (Cert 15, 97 mins, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Thriller/Action/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99)

Starring: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, Tuppence Middleton, Danny Sapani, Matt Cross, Wahab Sheikh, Mark Poltimore.

Art auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) accrues massive gambling debts and agrees to clear his arrears by helping criminal Franck (Vincent Cassel) to steal Francisco Goya's painting Witches In The Air as it goes under the hammer. The heist goes as planned until Franck knocks Simon unconscious and the auctioneer wakes some time later, bloodied and disoriented, suffering from severe memory loss - which is unfortunate when it transpires that the painting has gone missing and its location is buried deep within Simon's fractured memory. So Franck enlists the services of sexy hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to dig deep within Simon's subconscious and tease out the location of the stolen canvas. Filmed on location in London, Trance is a tricksy psychological thriller, penned by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge, which plays loose and fast with our preconceptions. As a mind-bending trip, the film isn't quite as smart as it pretends to be, tipping the wink to one major plot twist far too early. However, director Danny Boyle's bravura direction energises every frame, and he and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle cleverly blur reality and fantasy so we're never quite sure if events are unfolding as a dream. McAvoy, Dawson and Cassel form the three points of a volatile and erotically charged menage a trois, which culminates in a scene of unexpected full frontal nudity that takes the breath away. The rest of Boyle's film attempts a similar feat and for the most part, we hold on tight for the numerous hairpin twists and turns.

Rating: ****

Released

Dark Skies (Cert 15, 93 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, Sci-Fi/Horror/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £17.99/Blu-ray £19.99)

Starring: Josh Hamilton, Keri Russell, Dakota Goyo, Kadan Rockett, LJ Benet, JK Simmons, Annie Thurman, Rich Hutchman, Myndy Crist.

Daniel Barrett (Josh Hamilton) is an unemployed architect, who lives with his wife Lacy (Keri Russell) and their two boys, Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and Sammy (Kadan Rockett). Lacy is woken in the middle of the night and discovers the contents of the fridge strewn across the floor and the back door open. The Barretts witness more strange occurrences and as these bizarre events increase in frequency and ferocity, including the mass suicide of flocks of birds, Daniel and Lacy struggle to protect their children from harm. Lacy opens her mind to the possibility that the family is being targeted by aliens. "You know that's insane!" scoffs Daniel, but eventually he agrees to enlist the help of a specialist, Edwin Pollard (JK Simmons), who knows exactly what the family is going through. Dark Skies chronicles the days leading up to a supposed alien abduction through the eyes of a fractured suburban family, trapped in a familiar mire of unpaid bills, work pressures and teenage angst. Director Scott Stewart sustains tension by grounding most of the family's torment in reality. Digital effects take a tighter hold of the narrative in the closing minutes when the mystery about the aliens is resolved with a flourish. The ensemble cast is solid, notably youngsters Goyo and Rockett, who deliver compelling, natural performances. The familiarity of the set-up and its execution are the biggest disappointment, including a brief foray into Paranormal Activity-style video surveillance. If only Mulder and Scully hadn't closed The X Files more than a decade ago; they'd have the mystery unravelled in no time at all.

Rating: ***

Stolen (Cert 12, 91 mins, Lionsgate Home Entertainment UK Ltd, Thriller/Action/Romance, also available to buy DVD £17.99/Blu-ray £21.99)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Josh Lucas, Sami Gayle, Danny Huston, Malin Akerman, MC Gainey, Mark Valley.

Seasoned thief Will Montgomery (Nicolas Cage) pulls off an audacious heist with his associates Vincent (Josh Lucas), Riley (Malin Akerman) and Hoyt (MC Gainey). One member of the crew gets greedy and Will is arrested shortly after he incinerates the incriminating 10 million dollar haul. Will emerges from prison eight years later with a desire to go straight, which infuriates arresting officer Tim Harlend (Danny Huston) and his partner Detective Fletcher (Mark Valley), who mistakenly believe Will squirreled away the loot. The ex-con's plans to start afresh are wrecked when old partner Vincent kidnaps Will's teenage daughter, Alison (Sami Gayle), and holds her hostage for a 10 million dollar ransom. The clock is ticking and Will has just 12 hours to accumulate the cash or Alison will die. Stolen is a lumbering action thriller, which intends to pickpocket 91 precious minutes of your life. Resist at all costs because Simon West's film is a bore, hanging its flimsy premise on the daredevil antics of a gung-ho father who will do anything to rescue his kidnapped daughter. David Guggenheim's script lurches from implausibility to physical impossibility, and none of the crash-bang action scenes, including a chase through a multi-storey car park, quickens the pulse. When someone in the film refers with utmost seriousness to Will as "America's greatest bank robber", the sniggering begins. Clunky dialogue falls flat, a romantic subplot is stymied by a lack of sexual chemistry between Cage and Akerman, and the waterlogged climactic showdown is unintentional campy.

Rating: **

Also released

Blancanieves (Cert 12, 100 mins, Studio Canal, Fantasy/Drama, also available to buy DVD £19.99 - see below)

The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh (Cert 12, 77 mins, Metrodome Distribution, Horror/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £12.99 - see below)

Papadopoulos & Sons (Cert 15, 104 mins, Lace Digital, Comedy/Drama/Romance, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below)

New to buy on DVD/Blu-ray

Boardwalk Empire - The Complete Third Season (Cert 18, 670 mins, Warner Home Video/HBO, DVD £39.99/Complete First, Second & Third Seasons DVD Box Set £64.99/Blu-ray £49.99/Complete First, Second & Third Seasons Blu-ray Box Set £79.99)

Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson (Steve Buscemi) discovers the people he can trust are fewer than he thinks in 12 gripping episodes of the award-winning drama set in 1920s corruption-riddled Atlantic City. This series, Sicilian mobster Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale) causes serious problems for Nucky's bootlegging business and attempts to muscle in on the lucrative enterprise, Nucky's wife Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) makes a shocking disclosure to her lover, handsome Irishman Owen Sleater (Charlie Cox), and Eli (Shea Whigham) gets out of jail and walks straight into the middle of an escalating turf war that can only end in senseless bloodshed. A 15-disc set comprising all three series is also available.

Good Vibrations (Cert 15, 98 mins, Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd, DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £19.99, Drama/Musical)

Directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn pay tribute to a rebel with a cause whose passion helped to bring together 1970s Belfast when the Troubles shut down the city. Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer) is a radical who laughs in the face of common sense and authority. He loves music and while all of his friends are taking sides during the bloody conflict that grips Belfast, Terri opens a record shop called Good Vibrations on the most bombed half-mile in Europe. He fills the shelves with underground punk and rock, introducing the local kids to incredible new acts such as The Undertones and The Outcasts. Teenagers rally behind Terri as he suffers financial woes that threaten to close down Good Vibrations. Even as he faces the potential loss of his business empire, Terri continues to hold firm to his belief that music can bring together the people of Ulster and facilitate a brighter future.

The Jungle Book (Diamond Edition) (Cert U, 75 mins, Disney DVD, DVD £17.99/Blu-ray £21.99, Family/Animation/Musical/Comedy)

Disney's enduringly popular adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories swings back onto DVD and debuts on Blu-ray. Mowgli (voiced by Bruce Reitherman) is raised in the jungle by wolves, where his friends Baloo the bear (Phil Harris) and Bagheera the black panther (Sebastian Cabot) keep a close eye on the man cub. When rumours spread that vicious tiger Shere Khan (George Sanders) has returned to the jungle, Baloo and Bagheera agree that Mowgli would be safe back in the village with the other humans but the journey back home is complicated by unexpected encounters with crazy orangutan King Louie (Louis Prima) and hypnotic python Kaa (Sterling Holloway). The film's most famous song "Bare Necessities" won an Oscar and this was the last film overseen entirely by Disney before his death.

American Dad! - Volume 8 (Cert 15, 381 mins, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, DVD £27.99/Vol 1-8 DVD Box Set £149.99, Animation/Comedy)

Three-disc box set of 17 episodes from the popular animated comedy created by Seth MacFarlane. This series, CIA agent Stan Smith (voiced by MacFarlane) meets Ricky Martin during a vacation in Miami, his long-suffering wife Francine (Wendy Schaal) develops a nasty case of the green-eyed monster when Stan crosses paths with an old crush from CIA boot camp and daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) learns to her cost the perils of excessive drinking. A 24-disc set comprising all 133 episodes is also available.

Doctor Who: The Green Death (Cert U, 154 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £19.99, Sci-Fi/Drama)

Trusty companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) bids a tearful farewell to the timelord (Jon Pertwee) so she can marry Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan) in this six-part adventure, which was originally broadcast in May and June 1973. Jo learns about the mysterious death of a miner in an inactive pit and when the Doctor leads an expedition below ground, he finds thousands of maggots surrounded by poisonous slime. The trail leads to the Global Chemical plant, where the timelord discovers its foreman, Stevens (Jerome Willis) is under the control of a megalomaniacal computer nicknamed BOSS, which intends to wipe out the human race.

Blancanieves (Cert 12, 100 mins, Studio Canal, DVD £19.99, Fantasy/Drama)

Pablo Berger's award-winning reworking of the Snow White fairy-tale resets the Brothers Grimm story to 1920s Andalucia and is shot as a black and white silent. Legendary bullfighter Antonio Villalta (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) cuts a dashing figure in the ring and returns home to his doting wife, flamenco dancer Carmen (Inma Cuesta). She falls pregnant and gives birth just as Antonio faces off against a bull named Lucifer. The animal inflicts terrible injuries, which leave Antonio paralysed, and such is Carmen's distress seeing her husband lying lifeless in the ring, she dies in childbirth. Their daughter, also called Carmen (Sofia Oria), is raised by her grandmother (Angela Molina) and also by her father's scheming nurse, Encarna (Maribel Verdu), who eventually becomes the girl's stepmother. As Carmen grows (now played Macarena Garcia), she witnesses firsthand Encarna's wickedness and escapes from the household with her pet rooster before she suffers a tragic fate.

Papadopoulos & Sons (Cert 15, 104 mins, Lace Digital, DVD £15.99, Comedy/Drama/Romance)

Harry Papadopoulos (Stephen Dillane) has been estranged from his larger-than-life brother Spiros (Georges Corraface) for years but doesn't care since he has a large mansion and all the trappings of wealth. A financial crisis renders Harry and his loved ones virtually bankrupt except for the family's long-forgotten Three Brothers Fish & Chip Shop, partly owned by Spiros. Rather than live on the streets, Harry and his brood join Spiros in tatty accommodation above the chip shop and attempt to turn the business around. Arch-rival Hassan (George Savvides) from the neighbouring Turkish kebab shop is less than thrilled by the challenge to his fast food superiority and tension between the two families intensifies when Hassan's handsome son Mehmet (Cesare Taurasi) makes clear his romantic interest in Harry's daughter, Katie (Georgia Groome).

Inside Out (Cert 12, 89 mins, World Wrestling Entertainment, DVD £12.99/Blu-ray £13.99, Thriller/Action)

AJ (Paul 'Triple H' Levesque) served 13 years in prison for manslaughter to protect his best friend Jack (Michael Rapaport), who is also the son of local mob boss Dr Vic (Bruce Dern). Back on the outside, AJ looks forward to a life without trouble or crime but he is quickly drawn back into his old life when Jack accidentally shoots someone. The wound is fatal and Jack flees just as his father faces investigation at the hands of the Louisiana Tax Board. As a bad situation spirals sickeningly out of control, Jack's wife Claire (Parker Posey) and daughter Pepper (Juliette Goglia) are caught in the crossfire and AJ risks everything to save them.

Jo - Season 1 (Cert 15, 370 mins, Arrow Films, DVD £19.99, Drama/Thriller/Comedy)

Jean Reno headlines this eight-part crime drama set in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Grizzled detective Jo St-Clair (Reno) is recently widowed and is struggling to cope with the help of excess alcohol. His whirling emotions have estranged him from his daughter but thus far, haven't impaired his ability to solve crimes as part of the Criminal Brigade led by Beatrice Dormont (Orla Brady). Brutal murders at some of the most famous locations in Paris test St-Clair to the limit and force him to confront his demons or be destroyed by them. The two-disc set includes the episodes Notre-Dame, Pigalle, Place De La Concorde, The Invalides, Place Vendome, Le Marais, Opera and The Catacombs.

Viramundo (Cert E, 91 mins, Soda Pictures, DVD £17.99, Documentary/Musical)

Born in Bahia in 1942, guitarist and singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil gained worldwide acclaim at the forefront of the tropicalia movement. More importantly, he affected positive, lasting changing in his home country in his role as Minister of Culture, fighting hard against his opponents to democratise new technologies. In this documentary, directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, Gil travels from his home around the world searching for equality and cultural diversity through the medium of music. He meets politicians and people in Australia and South Africa before he performs a web concert on the small Amazonian island of Isla de Flores in front of members of the local indigenous population.

The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh (Cert 12, 77 mins, Metrodome Distribution, DVD £12.99, Horror/Thriller)

Leon (Aaron Poole) fell out his with his mother Rosalind (Vanessa Redgrave) over religious matters and became estranged from the old woman, who lived alone in a remote house. When she dies, Leon returns to her home and discovers the property is crammed full of statues of angels like a shrine. Strange events occur within the four walls of the house and Leon becomes convinced that Rosalind's spirit has not yet departed the corporeal plane. As he investigates, the son discovers that his mother was involved in a very bizarre and troubling rituals.

Outsourced - Season One (Cert 12, 471 mins, Fremantle Home Entertainment, DVD £24.99, Comedy/Romance)

Based on the 2006 film of the same name, Outsourced is a US sitcom about a hard-working manager, who must adjust to life in a foreign country. Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport) is the newly-appointed head of the call centre for Mid America Novelties. When the company relocates to Mumbai, India, Todd struggles to acclimatise with limited help from ambitious assistant manager Rajiv (Rizwan Manji). Thankfully, fellow call centre managers Charlie (Diedrich Bader) and Tonya (Pippa Black) provide him with the advice and friendship he needs to keep the new workforce in line.

Dark Feed (Cert 18, 82 mins, Anchor Bay Home Entertainment, DVD £12.99, Horror/Thriller)

Michael Rasmussen and his brother Shawn, who penned the script to John Carpenter's 2010 thriller The Ward, direct this horror set inside an abandoned mental institution. A film crew chooses an old insane asylum as the perfect location for a creepy feature and begins to shoot a low budget feature within the dark, foreboding walls. The eerie building begins to play tricks with the minds of everyone in front of and behind the camera and slowly, everyone involved in the film begins to lose grasp of their sanity.

The Cabin At Sorrow Creek (Cert 15, 74 mins, New Horizon Films, DVD £14.99, Horror/Thriller)

Kayla (Freya Ravensbergen) and her sister Jesse (Christina Caron) have fond memories of spending lazy summers at their grandfather's cottage in the New England woods. Fifteen years after their last visit to the secluded retreat, Kayla and Jesse escape from the hustle and bustle of life in New York City to the secluded retreat with their respective boyfriends Dean (Matt Turner) and Tobe (Jon Deitcher). The quartet explores the area and Jesse separates from the rest of the group. Soon after, Kayla, Dean and Tobe realise malevolent forces are at work in the woods, which react violently to interlopers.

Ranger (Cert 15, 78 mins, 101 Films, DVD £14.99, Western/Drama)

Wyeth Clarkson directs and co-writes this Canadian western about a single man, who dons his spurs to restore law and order to a dangerously corrupt town. Mountie Wade Grayling (Andrew W Walker) arrives in a settlement where crime is rife and a man has just been found dead. It becomes clear that justice will not be served in this godforsaken place unless Wade forces the issue so the officer takes his life into his hands to identify the men responsible and ensure they pay heavily for their sins.

DVD retail top 10

1 (1) Luther: Series 1-2 Box Set

2 (2) Despicable Me

3 (3) Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred

4 (-) Luther: Series 1-3 Box Set

5 (-) Jack the Giant Slayer

6 (8) G.I. Joe: Retaliation

7 (-) Red

8 (-) Quartet

9 (-) Wimbledon: Official 2013 Gentleman's Final

10 (5) Dexter - Season 7

Chart supplied by Amazon.co.uk

DVD rental top 10

1 (1) Life of Pi

2 (3) Les Miserables

3 (10) Robot and Frank

4 (7) Arbitrage

5 (4) Oz the Great and Powerful

6 (5) Django Unchained

7 (2) Parker

8 (6) Safe Haven

9 (8) The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

10 (9) Flight

Chart supplied by www.LOVEFiLM.com

Film streaming top 10

1 (2) Barbie - Princess Charm School

2 (1) Scooby Doo

3 (-) Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Rodrick Rules

4 (7) Cars 2

5 (-) The Sweetest Thing

6 (3) Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed

7 (4) Dumb and Dumber

8 (-) Van Wilder - Party Liaison How to Rob a Bank

9 (6) Due Date

10 (5) Hall Pass

Chart supplied by www.LOVEFiLM.com