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Review Acorn Media / Midsomer Murders - Shot At Dawn
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Holthouse
  • Jason Hughes
  • John Nettles
Release date: 2008-04-12
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £7.98

Review Midsomer Murders - Shot At Dawn / Acorn Media:


Review Warner Home Video / Presumed Innocent [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • Harrison Ford
  • Alan J. Pakula
  • Raul Julia
  • Brian Dennehy
  • Paul Winfield
  • Bonnie Bedelia
Release date: 1999-07-26
Run time: 121 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £1.59

Review Presumed Innocent [1990] / Warner Home Video:

Rich with ambiguity, this smooth adaptation of Scott Turow's bestselling mystery novel stars Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the prosecuting attorney assigned to a case involving the murder of a beautiful, seductive lawyer (Greta Scacchi) with whom he'd been having a secret affair. After the investigation gets off to a slow start, damning evidence points to Rusty as the prime suspect. His career is destroyed when his superior and secondary suspect Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy) sets him up for the fall. Bonnie Bedelia plays Rusty's wife Barbara, who is not above suspicion herself. While Ford's performance rides a fine line between presumed innocence and possible guilt, director Alan J Pakula (All the President's Men) maintains a consistent tone of uncertainty that keeps the viewer guessing. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Momentum Pictures / Wicker Park [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul McGuigan
  • Josh Hartnett
  • Diane Kruger
  • Rose Byrne
  • Matthew Lillard
Release date: 2005-02-07
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.50

Review Wicker Park [2004] / Momentum Pictures:


Review MGM Entertainment / Summer Of Sam [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Badalucco
  • Evander Holyfield
  • Spike Lee
  • Jimmy Breslin
  • John Leguizamo
  • Mark Breland
Release date: 2000-07-24
Run time: 136 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.70

Review Summer Of Sam [2000] / MGM Entertainment:

It's important to note that Spike Lee's drama is not titled Son of Sam. Summer of Sam doesn't chronicle the killer as much as the times: the blistering hot summer of 1977 when the Big Apple's psyche was taken hostage by the lone gunman. We spot the killer (Michael Badalucco) in his mad ramblings but the film centres on two friends from the Bronx: Vinny and Ritchie (John Leguizamo and Adrien Brody). Vinny and his wife, Dionna (Mira Sorvino), bury a bad marriage (he cheats at a drop of a hat) in the disco halls of the area. Ritchie returns to the neighbourhood sporting punk hair, punk clothes and a British accent that immediately infuriates the neighbourhood boys oozing far too much testosterone. Cops, local mob leaders and the guys on the street all have ideas who the killer is: everyone from neighbourhood loners to Reggie Jackson (in the midst of World Series heroism) are on their misguided lists of suspects. When the film looks at how the citizens faced the fearful times, Lee scores with his energetic camerawork and pop soundtrack. Yet the film is banal in its domestic dramatics, taking large detours into Vinny's home sex life (stagnant) and Ritchie's extracurricular activities. One of the marriage arguments-though real and well acted-is so long and cliché-ridden you wonder if someone fell asleep in the editing booth. Add the point-blank killings and non-stop vulgarity and you have Lee's most unpleasant film. [+]
-Doug Thomas.

Review Paramount / Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Conley
  • Maria Bello
  • James Coburn
  • Mel Gibson
  • Lucy Liu
Release date: 2007-04-10
Run time: 90 min.
Price: £4.79

Review Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Chinatown [1974]
Actors & Directors
  • Noble Willingham
  • Joe Mantell
  • Roy Roberts
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Burt Young
  • Roman Polanski
Release date: 2000-10-02
Run time: 125 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.62

Review Chinatown [1974] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency-and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J J Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mould, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole centre of this tale of treachery, incest and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted colour cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. Chinatown is one of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. -Anne Hurley Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency-and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is JJ Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mould, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole centre of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted colour cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. [+]
Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. -Anne Hurley, Amazon. com.

Review Entertainment in Video / Ripley's Game [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Uwe Mansshardt
  • Paolo Paoloni
  • Hanns Zischler
  • Liliana Cavani
  • John Malkovich
  • Ray Winstone
Release date: 2004-02-16
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.49

Review Ripley's Game [2003] / Entertainment in Video:

Ripley's Game is a well-appointed star vehicle in which the slippery protagonist of The Talented Mr Ripley returns in another deadly guise. The star this time is John Malkovich, whose older Tom Ripley has settled into an Italian villa and a life of aesthetic contemplation (a little like Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal). A former partner (Ray Winstone) drags an innocent frame-maker (Dougray Scott), dying of leukaemia, into the role of unexpected hit man. Ripley, for his own enigmatic reasons, helps. Liliana Cavani, of The Night Porter notoriety, directed this handsome if nebulous film (which has no connection to the Matt Damon picture, other than a Patricia Highsmith source novel). Malkovich exudes his usual oily disenchantment with the world; Lena Headey, like the location footage, is gorgeous. The same novel was adapted in very different style by Wim Wenders for his brilliant 1977 film, The American Friend, with Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz. -Robert Horton.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • André Morell
  • Marla Landi
  • David Oxley
  • Terence Fisher
  • Christopher Lee
  • Peter Cushing
Release date: 2003-10-20
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.59

Review The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959] / MGM Entertainment:

Sherlock Holmes gets the Gothic treatment in Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, a typical mix of mystery and supernatural horror from the famous studio. Peter Cushing is perfectly cast as the great detective, the very embodiment of science and reason (which also made him a great Van Helsing in the Dracula series) in a case wound around a legacy of aristocratic cruelty and a devilish dog wandering the swampy moors. Christopher Lee is a less satisfying fit as the last of the Baskervilles, as he waffles between fear and apathetic disregard, but Andre Morell is a fine Dr Watson and a far cry from Nigel Bruce's sweet bumbler from the Hollywood incarnation of the 1940s. Director Terence Fisher was Hammer's top stylist and the film drips with the mood of the moors, mist hanging in the air, the dying vegetation itself threatening to come to life and trap the next unwary traveller. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Universal Pictures UK / The Ultimate Bourne Collection Steel box set [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Doug Liman
  • Clive Owen
  • Brian Cox
  • Albert Finney
  • Franka Potente
  • Paul Greengrass
  • Matt Damon
Release date: 2008-10-20
Run time: 327 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £17.99

Review The Ultimate Bourne Collection Steel box set [2007] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Instinct [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony Hopkins
  • Cuba Gooding Jr.
  • Jon Turteltaub
  • George Dzundza
  • Maura Tierney
  • Donald Sutherland
Release date: 2006-06-15
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.10

Review Instinct [1999] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor; Cuba Gooding Jr is a talented guy with a lot of charm. Both have recently won Oscars (Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs and Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire, respectively); neither can make Instinct compelling. Hopkins plays a brilliant anthropologist studying gorillas who entered into their world, becoming part of their family, and who killed two park rangers in the gorillas' habitat. Gooding plays a brilliant young psychiatrist who is supposed to evaluate Hopkins and determine whether he's fit to stand trial. Hopkins, along with a number of other psychotics, is being held at a prison, which serves to illustrate the movie's themes about control and freedom. It's not so much that the ideas themselves are hokum-nature versus civilisation is always a rich topic-it's that Instinct boils them down to inane sound bites. Psychology is reduced to a game in which the psychiatrist's job is to trick the patient into believing the correct thing or revealing the key that will solve the puzzle. There's not a credible moment in the whole movie, despite the presence of a good cast, including Donald Sutherland and Maura Tierney. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review Network / Capricorn One [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • Brenda Vaccaro
  • Telly Savalas
  • Elliott Gould
  • Peter Hyams
  • James Brolin
  • Hal Holbrook
Release date: 2005-11-07
Run time: 123 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.96

Review Capricorn One [1976] / Network:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Law And Order Criminal Intent - The Second Year [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Courtney B. Vance
  • Vincent D'Onofrio
  • Kathryn Erbe
  • Jamey Sheridan
Release date: 2006-07-17
Run time: 900 min.
RRP: £44.99
Price: £22.54

Review Law And Order Criminal Intent - The Second Year [2002] / Universal Pictures UK:


Release date: 2008-12-01
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.98

Review 24 - Exile / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Lions Gate Home Ent. UK Ltd / The Contract [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Ned Bellamy
  • Morgan Freeman
  • Bruce Beresford
  • Megan Dodds
  • John Cusack
  • Jamie Anderson
Release date: 2007-09-10
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.28

Review The Contract [2006] / Lions Gate Home Ent. UK Ltd:


Review Warner Home Video / Tango and Cash [1989] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Kurt Russell
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Brion James
  • Albert Magnoli
  • Andrei Konchalovsky
  • Teri Hatcher
  • Jack Palance
Release date: 1997-10-01
Run time: 104 min.
Price: £2.58

Review Tango and Cash [1989] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Universal / A Simple Plan
Release date: 2005-03-07
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.58

Review A Simple Plan / Universal:

An endless white landscape of rolling hills and snow-blanketed forests. A lonely acoustic score (by Danny Elfman) playing in the background. A vision of rural simplicity portrayed in hushed tones. The stillness is about to shatter. Brothers Hank (Bill Paxton), an accountant at a small-town feed store, and Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), an unemployed, hygienically challenged dim bulb, accompanied by Jacob's oafish pal Lou (Brent Briscoe), stumble across a downed plane in the brush containing a corpse and a sack containing millions of dollars-surely the aftermath of a drug deal, they conclude. Greed overcomes good sense, and the three agree to hide the money for a year and keep the secret to themselves. A simple plan indeed, and it doesn't take long for it to go all to hell as the lure of wealth tears at kinship and friendship, and the ruthless machinations of impetuous partners leave a body count in its wake. Bridget Fonda costars as Hank's wife, whose initial hesitation gives way to cold-blooded plotting. Sam Raimi, best known for wowing audiences with stylistic gymnastics and manic mayhem, directs this quietly desperate thriller with chilly restraint, finding its cold, tragic heart in the estranged relationship between Hank and Jacob: the college boy blind to the truth of his own family and the town loser whose tortured soul reveals a humanity lost on his brother (a brilliant performance by Thornton). Adapted by Scott B. [+]
Smith from his acclaimed novel. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Thriller/Legal Box Set / John Grisham's The Rainmaker / The Firm / Changing Lanes
Release date: 2004-10-11
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.23

Review John Grisham's The Rainmaker / The Firm / Changing Lanes / Thriller/Legal Box Set:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / When A Stranger Calls [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Clark Gregg
  • Simon West
  • Camilla Belle
  • Katie Cassidy
  • Brian Geraghty
Release date: 2006-09-11
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £2.99

Review When A Stranger Calls [2006] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Enemy Of The State [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Tony Scott
  • Lisa Bonet
  • Will Smith
  • Gene Hackman
  • Regina King
  • Jon Voight
Release date: 2007-10-01
Run time: 127 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £2.86

Review Enemy Of The State [1998] / Buena Vista Home Entertainment:

Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) is a lawyer with a wife and family whose happily normal life is turned upside down after a chance meeting with a college buddy (Jason Lee) at a lingerie shop. Unbeknownst to the lawyer, he's just been burdened with a videotape of a congressman's assassination. Hot on the tail of this tape is a ruthless group of National Security Agents commanded by a belligerently ambitious fed named Reynolds (Jon Voight). Using surveillance from satellites, bugs and other sophisticated snooping devices, the NSA infiltrates every facet of Dean's existence, tracing each physical and digital footprint he leaves. Driven by acute paranoia, Dean enlists the help of a clandestine former NSA operative named Brill (Gene Hackman) and Enemy of the State kicks into high-intensity hyperdrive. Teaming up once again with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Top Gun director Tony Scott demonstrates his glossy style with clever cinematography and breakneck pacing. Will Smith proves that there's more to his success than a brash sense of humour, giving a versatile performance that plausibly illustrates a man cracking under the strain of paranoid turmoil. Hackman steals the show by essentially reprising his role from The Conversation-just imagine his memorable character Harry Caul some 20 years later. Most of all, the film's depiction of high-tech surveillance is highly convincing and dramatically compelling, making this a cautionary tale with more substance than you'd normally expect from a Scott-Bruckheimer action extravaganza. -Jeremy Storey.

Review Network / Armchair Thriller Vol.6 - The Fear Of God
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Tronson
  • Robert Tronson
  • Peter Cellier
  • Garrick Hagon
Release date: 2008-08-11
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £8.95

Review Armchair Thriller Vol.6 - The Fear Of God / Network:


Browse Crime, Thrillers & Mystery:

Models & Brands:
Midsomer Murders - Shot At Dawn, Presumed Innocent [1990], Wicker Park [2004], Summer Of Sam [2000], Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Chinatown [1974], Ripley's Game [2003], The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959], The Ultimate Bourne Collection Steel box set [2007], Instinct [1999], Capricorn One [1976], Law And Order Criminal Intent - The Second Year [2002], 24 - Exile, The Contract [2006], Tango and Cash [1989] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Simple Plan, John Grisham's The Rainmaker / The Firm / Changing Lanes, When A Stranger Calls [2006], Enemy Of The State [1998], Armchair Thriller Vol.6 - The Fear Of God

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