The latest DVDs are reviewed.
Directed by Michael Haneke. Starring Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou, Annie Girardot, Bernard Le Coq 18 cert
****
In Haneke's deeply intriguing and calculatedly disturbing French drama, Auteuil and Binoche play a couple whose bourgeois lifestyle is shattered when videotapes arrive in the post. The film subtly broadens its scope from the personal to the political, past and present, and it continues to prompt reflection well after the closing credits roll. Michael Dwyer
Directed by Alexandre Aja. Starring Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Ted Levine 18 cert
***
A family of suburban campers rubs up against a family of mutant cannibals. Purists who feel that Aja has done something awful to Wes Craven's 1977 original may be interested to hear Wes, a producer of the remake, praise the reworking on the commentary track. In truth, the new version, issued here in an extended cut, is a tad too polite. Gory fun nonetheless. Donald Clarke
Directed by Lasse Hallström. Starring Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, Lena Olin, Omid Djalili 12 cert
**
Leaden farce which finds Ledger's titular Lothario donning masks and leaping from roof to roof in pursuit of Miller's proto-feminist posh totty. Venice looks nice and the comic relief are all on good form, but Miller is so blandly anonymous she is practically transparent. Donald Clarke
Directed by Mikael Håfström. Starring Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston, Vincent Cassel, Tom Conti, Melissa George, RZA 16 cert
*
Aniston's many fans will hope and pray that the only way is up after this preposterous thriller in which the lively comedienne plays a femme fatale who leads Owen, an ordered businessman, into a world of pain. Everyone is miscast. Nothing makes sense. And the DVD extras are hopeless. Donald Clarke
Directed by Paul McGuigan. Starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Ben Kingsley 18 cert
*
Hartnett's character gets caught up in a case of mistaken identity and rivalry between two criminal kingpins in a convoluted yarn laden with self-conscious popular culture references and pretentious wordplay. Michael Dwyer
