DVD Review - May 11

By Damon Smith

New to rent on DVD/Blu-ray The Impossible (Cert 12, 109 mins, Entertainment One, Thriller/Action/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99) Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Dominic Power, Geraldine Chaplin.

Henry (Ewan McGregor) and Maria (Naomi Watts) arrive in the tropical paradise of Thailand with their three sons, Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). They open Christmas presents on the patio overlooking the sea, unaware of the horror to come. The following day, flocks of terrified birds take to the skies, heralding a wall of water that careens through the complex. Maria and Lucas are carried away by the surge and when the water recedes, mother and son stumble through mud and detritus in search of survivors. Meanwhile, Henry is forced to leave his two youngest boys in the care of strangers in order to learn the fate of his wife and eldest child. The Impossible recounts the harrowing true story of one family caught up in the tsunami, which tore through southern Asia on December 26, 2004, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Adapted by screenwriter Sergio G Sanchez from the nightmarish recollections of survivors Maria and Enrique Belon, Juan Antonia Bayona's film packs a mighty emotional punch with every expertly crafted frame. Tsunami sequences are genuinely terrifying, realised through a combination of giant water tanks and digital effects to recreate the confusion that fateful winter's day. Watts wrings out copious tears as a critically ill mother who puts on a brave face in front of her terrified boy. McGregor has the less showy role but still tugs heartstrings with an anguished telephone call back home to distraught relatives. Teenage newcomer Holland impresses most, bearing the emotional weight of deeply moving scenes as if he has been acting all of his life.

Rating: ****

Quartet (Cert 12, 94 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, Comedy/Drama/Romance, also available to buy DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £19.99) Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon, Sheridan Smith.

Beecham House is a retirement home for opera singers and musicians in the twilight of their careers. Run with a gentle yet firm touch by on-staff medic Dr Lucy Cogan (Sheridan Smith), the facility heaves with eccentrics including luvvie Cedric (Michael Gambon), who masterminds the annual fundraising concert attended by staff and wealthy donors. Three of the residents - Reginald (Tom Courtenay), Wilf (Billy Connolly) and Cissy (Pauline Collins) - once performed Verdi's quartet from Rigoletto as part of a celebrated four-piece. The unexpected arrival of the group's last member, Reg's ex-wife Jean (Maggie Smith), sends shockwaves through Beecham House. Once Jean rebuilds bridges that were burnt to a cinder, she rediscovers her passion for performance, laying the foundations for a reprise of the quartet's soaring rendition of "Bella figlia dell'amore". Quartet is a warm, gentle hug of a comedy that never quite escapes its origins as an acclaimed stage work. Adapted for the screen by playwright Ronald Harwood, the film feels static, cocooned with chambers of the retirement home, as characters deliver polished dialogue from their sofas and armchairs. The ensemble cast is excellent, from Smith's diva who "never took less than 12 curtain calls" for her embodiment of Verdi's Gilda, to Courtenay's bookish fuddy-duddy. Connolly and Collins relish the opportunity to play larger-than-life comic foils: the former with a glint in his eye as an outrageous flirt; the latter as a wide-eyed innocent whose forgetfulness heralds the early stages of dementia. It's light and frothy fare with a generous glaze of sentiment, which marks an assured directorial debut for Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman.

Rating: ***

Midnight's Children (Cert 12, 139 mins, Entertainment One, Drama/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99) Starring: Satya Bhabha, Ronit Roy, Shahana Goswami, Siddharth, Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas, Rajat Kapoor, Shabana Azmi.

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, explosions of fireworks signify the dissolution of the British Raj and the partition of India and Pakistan. Maternity nurse (Seema Biswas) is swept up in revolutionary fervour and switches the name tags of two infants, Saleem and Shiva, robbing the latter of his privileged birth right. Saleem (Satya Bhabha) doesn't look like his parents, Ahmed (Ronit Roy) and Amina (Shahana Goswami), but his mother loves him unconditionally, unaware of the mix-up in the hospital nursery. A simple sneeze unlocks Saleem's ability to telepathically connect with the other children born at midnight. However, Shiva (Siddharth) harbours deep resentment towards Saleem and plots to seize control of this band of misfits. Midnight's Children is a slog at almost 140 minutes, based on a script by Salman Rushdie, who provides the mellifluous narration. Anecdotal in structure, Deepa Mehta's sprawling history lesson fails to cast a heady spell, stripped bare of some of the magical realism of Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel. Like the book, Mehta's film encompasses 60 turbulent years but sacrifices Shiva's back-story to focus predominantly on Saleem. Consequently, the narrative feels unbalanced and we don't share Shiva's sense of injustice. Other characters are given similarly short shrift. Playfulness and romance of early scenes, recounting the courtship of Saleem's grandfather (Rajat Kapoor) and grandmother (Shabana Azmi) through a hole in a bed sheet, dissipates and the pace slows to a pedestrian crawl. The pen is mightier than the film camera.

Rating: ***

Alex Cross (Cert 15, 97 mins, Entertainment In Video, Thriller/Action/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99) Starring: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Edward Burns, Rachel Nichols, Carmen Ejogo, Cicely Tyson, Yara Shahidi, Sayeed Shahidi, Jean Reno, Stephanie Jacobsen.

Detective Alex Cross (Tyler Perry) returns home to his pregnant wife Maria (Carmen Ejogo), grandmother Nana Mama (Cicely Tyson) and children Damon (Sayeed Shahidi) and Janelle (Yara Shahidi), unaware his partner Tommy Kane (Edward Burns) and colleague Monica Ashe (Rachel Nichols) are enjoying a secret affair, which is against department rules. Soon after, Cross and Kane are called to a grisly murder scene. Businesswoman Fan Yau (Stephanie Jacobsen) has been tortured and slain. Cross deduces that one man is responsible for the carnage - sadistic assassin Picasso (Matthew Fox) - whose ultimate target appears to be billionaire CEO Leon Mercier (Jean Reno). As the Detroit police close in on their wily prey, Picasso retaliates by targeting the cops, their families and friends. Based on the 12th book in James Patterson's long-running series featuring Detective Alex Cross, Rob Cohen's film lumbers when it should sprint, and the running time feels considerably longer than 97 minutes. Perry is solid and brings emotional depth to the role but the picture around him suffers the same failings as earlier Patterson adaptations (Along Came A Spider, Kiss The Girls), reducing the psychologically complex and brilliant central character to a bland, cliched cop. Fox banishes his nice-guy image as the merciless tic-riddled killer but supporting performances are perfunctory. Flashes of brilliance from the titular hero, which sound credible on the page, are risible on screen and manifest without any build-up. A pivotal showdown between Cross and Picasso is reduced to an incomprehensible blur by overly enthusiastic editing.

Rating: **

Also released Come Out And Play (Cert 18, 83 mins, Metrodome Distribution, Horror/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below) Kill 'Em All (Cert 18, 86 mins, Koch Media, Action/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below) The Tower (Cert 15, 116 mins, Entertainment One, Thriller/Action, also available to buy DVD £9.99 - see below) New to buy on DVD/Blu-ray Endeavour - The Complete First Series (Cert 12, 198 mins, ITV Studios Home Entertainment, DVD £19.99, Drama/Thriller) Following its broadcast on ITV1, the 1960s-set prequel to Inspector Morse walks the beat on DVD. Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) is a quixotic police constable in Oxford whose methods fail to impress Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser), despite the backing of his senior partner Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) and PC James Strange (Sean Rigby). Unperturbed, Morse uses his brilliant mind to unlock the mysteries of several local murders including a poisoning and a shooting. The two-disc set includes the episodes Girl, Fugue, Rocket and Home.

Jonathan Creek: The Clue Of The Savant's Thumb (Cert 15, 89 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £19.99, Drama/Romance) Alan Davies returns to his signature role as a sleuth with a knack for solving fiendish puzzles in this latest instalment of the BBC One drama. When a body vanishes in front of numerous witnesses at a girls' boarding school, Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) and Joey (Sheridan Smith) are called in to unravel the mystery and make sense of the recurring ghostly apparitions. Using his logic and intuition, Jonathan uncovers a web of intrigue and secret societies that leads to a startling realisation about the tricky case. Sarah Alexander, Joanna Lumley, Michael Lumsden, Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer co-star.

Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror - The Complete Second Series (Cert 15, 134 mins, 4DVD, DVD £19.99, Drama/Comedy) Three more standalone dramas which explore how modern technology has infiltrated our day-to-day lives and warps the way we see ourselves and the surrounding world. Martha (Hayley Atwell) copes with the grief of losing her partner Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) by connecting with a social media clone of her beloved. The emotional attachment deepens but Martha must soon face the fact that artificial Ash pales next to the real thing... Victoria (Lenora Crichlow) wakes without her memory and learns from a stranger called Jem (Tuppence Middleton) that most of the human population is being controlled by a transmitter known as White Bear. The only solution is to destroy the transmitter but at what cost?... and struggling comedian Jamie (Daniel Rigby) uses motion capture to interview prominent politicians as a cartoon bear called Waldo. The digital creature captures the public imagination so TV producer Jack Napier (Jason Flemyng) persuades Jamie to enter the political by standing in a by-election against bona fide contenders Liam Monroe (Tobias Menzies) and Gwendolyn Harris (Chloe Pirrie).

Doctor Who: The Visitation (Cert PG, 100 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £19.99, Sci-Fi/Drama) The Time Lord journeys back to the 17th century to save plague-ravaged London from an extra-terrestrial menace in this four-part adventure, which was originally broadcast in spring 1982. Tegan (Janet Fielding) is heading back to Heathrow Airport in the Tardis in the company of the Doctor (Peter Davison) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton). They arrive to discover it is 300 years earlier than intended - a time of dandy highwaymen like Richard Mace (Michael Robbins). He tells the travellers about a comet that landed on Earth recently and the Time Lord surmises that this was in fact a space capsule carrying alien invaders that intend to wipe out the entire human race.

Prisoners' Wives - Series Two (Cert 15, 396 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £15.99/Series One & Two DVD Box Set £24.99, Drama/Romance) Women whose loved ones are serving time behind bars struggle to cope on the outside in four episodes of the acclaimed BBC crime drama. Harriet (Pippa Haywood) feels a sense of relief when her inmate son Gavin (Adam Gillen) finds peace with a group of Muslims but nothing is quite what it seems. Francesca (Polly Walker) is still separated from her gangster husband Paul (Iain Glen) and her sense of unease intensifies when she is the victim of an arson attack. Meanwhile, Aisling (Karla Crome) begs her father to behave so he can be released early and attend her forthcoming nuptials, and doting wife Kim (Sally Carman) is distraught when her model husband is accused of a despicable crime. A four-disc set comprising both series is also available.

Come Out And Play (Cert 18, 83 mins, Metrodome Distribution, DVD £15.99, Horror/Thriller) Beth (Vinessa Shaw) and Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are American newlyweds who concede that the demands of raising a baby will soon take over their lives. So they to take one last luxury vacation and the lovebirds head to a remote yet beautiful Mexican island. Upon arrival, Beth and Francis are surprised to find children running around the far-flung, sun-kissed idyll and no adults to keep the urchins in check. Bemusement turns to terror as the new arrivals suffer a nightmarish ordeal at the hands of the vicious and spiteful tykes.

The Tower (Cert 15, 116 mins, Entertainment One, DVD £9.99, Thriller/Action) Dae-Ho (Kim Sang-kyung) is the proud owner of the luxurious Tower Sky building in Seoul and he is determined to throw the swankiest and most exclusive Christmas party in the capital. So he hires two helicopters to fly around the tower, spraying artificial snow to give the impression of an authentic white Christmas. Unfortunately, one of the helicopters crashes into the building, starting a blaze, which threatens to roast all of the partygoers alive. Dae-Ho must work with his terrified guests to survive and firefighters led by Young-ki (Sul Kyung-gu) tackle the raging inferno in this South Korean disaster movie directed by Kim Ji-hoon.

Kill 'Em All (Cert 18, 86 mins, Koch Media, DVD £15.99, Action/Thriller) Raimund Huber directs this martial arts thriller about a group of elite assassins who are drugged and kidnapped, then forced to take part in a bloodthirsty battle of survival masterminded by criminal kingpin Snakehead (Chia Hui Liu). At first, the captives abide by the rules of the game and the weakest competitors fall to the strongest and smartest warriors. Then three of the kidnapped fighters - Gabriel (Johnny Messner), The Kid (Tim Man) and Som (Ammara Siripong) - call a truce and divert all of their energy instead to bringing down Snakehead and his corrupt empire.

Shadow People (Cert 12, 95 mins, Anchor Bay Entertainment, DVD £7.99/Blu-ray £9.99, Horror/Thriller) Radio talk show host Charlie Crowe (Dallas Roberts) used to command the airwaves but his popularity has waned. One of his callers confides to seeing shadowy figures in his dreams and soon after the man dies in hospital. More listeners ring in with similar stories and Charlie learns about a phenomenon known by the medical profession as Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome. The radio host follows a scattershot trail of evidence, which leads to an experimental sleep study in the 1970s. Charlie enlists the help of sceptical US government official Sophie Lacombe (Alison Eastwood) and she gradually shares his view that there is something very shady about the number of people perishing inexplicably in their sleep.

Midsomer Murders - The Complete Series Fifteen (Cert 12, 498 mins, Acorn Media, DVD £59.99, Drama/Thriller/Romance) A six-disc set comprising the most recent investigations of DCI John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and his trusty sidekick, DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes), as they solve murders in the picturesque county of Midsomer, including the demise of an amateur astronomer by a falling meteorite during a total eclipse of the sun, and the death of a journalist in suspicious circumstances, which mirrors a bloody scene from a 1960s horror film. The DVD box set comprises the episodes The Dark Rider, Murder Of Innocence, Written In The Stars, Death And The Divas, The Sicilian Defence and Schooled In Murder.

Wrath (Cert 18, 93 mins, OMG Media, DVD £12.99, Thriller) Jonathan Neil Dixon writes and directs this low-budget survival thriller set in the beautiful yet unforgiving Australian outback. Photographer Caroline Webster (Rebecca Ratcliff), her husband Matthew (Corey Page) and two friends are driving cross-country when they spot a woman at the roadside in obvious distress. The friends stop to help and realise too late that the cry for help was a trap. Caroline, Matthew and their pals become the hunted in a diabolical and deadly game of cat-and-mouse in a wilderness where one wrong step can be the last.

Billy Liar (50th Anniversary Edition) (Cert 15, 94 mins, Studio Canal, DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £19.99, Comedy/Romance) A very welcome re-issue of John Schlesinger's Bafta-nominated 1963 adaptation of the Keith Waterhouse book and subsequent stage play. Tom Courtenay stars as eternal dreamer Billy Liar, who is bored by his parents and his mundane job and much prefers to daydream about ruling the fictional kingdom of Ambrosia. Reality finally crashes in on fantasy when Billy meets the beautiful and free-spirited Liz (Julie Christie).

A Passage To India (Cert PG, 157 mins, Acorn Media, DVD £17.99, Drama) Maurice Jarre deservedly won the Oscar for Best Original Score alongside Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Best Supporting Actress for David Lean's sweeping 1984 adaptation of EM Forster's novel. Set in the 1920s when the Indian Independence movement gained traction in the British Raj, young Englishwoman Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and her travelling companion Mrs Moore (Ashcroft) befriend widowed Dr Aziz Ahmed (Victor Banerjee), who offers to take the ladies to the remote Marabar Caves. Miss Quested accuses Aziz of rape during the expedition and he stands trial for the crime, inflaming tensions between the native population and the British colonialists.

City Of Friends - Volume 1 (Cert U, 100 mins, Sky Vision, DVD £9.99, Animation/Children) Max the monkey police recruit, Elphie the elephant fire brigade officer and Ted the bear ambulance service trainee join forces to keep the residents of the city safe in 10 instalments of the animated series, which screens as part of Milkshake! on Channel 5. The DVD includes the episodes Max To The Max, Silence Is Golden, Elphie Get Your Bun, Down The Drain, Flat Out, Abby's Panic Attack, Bobby's Sandcastle, The Case Of The Missing Case, Fluffy and Clear The Line.

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