Video stores throughout the State are illegally renting copies of the critically acclaimed gangster movie, Donnie Brasco, starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp - even though the video has been passed with an "18" certificate by the film censor. The problem is that the film is preceded on the video by the trailer for a film which has not yet been viewed by the censor; by law, all trailers for cinema and video releases must be passed and classified by the censor's office.
The trailer is for a British film, Preaching to the Perverted, which features Tom Bell as an MP who is determined to bring a private prosecution against British fetish clubs. He recruits a young computer salesman (played by Christian Anholt) to infiltrate a London sado-masochism club run by an American dominatrix. The film, which went on cinema release in the UK during the summer, was passed over for Irish cinema release, but it has been submitted to the Irish censor as a video release.
"It is illegal to rent any cassette to the public if any parts of that cassette have not been classified," the film censor, Mr Sheamus Smith told The Irish Times yesterday. "To date, Preaching to the Perverted has not been classified, so it cannot be offered for rental. Those tapes will have to be withdrawn."
Video stores which rent films unclassified in part or in whole may be fined up to £1,000. However, a random survey of eight video stores across the State revealed that six were renting the offending tape already, while a seventh expected to have it "hopefully tomorrow". The video is proving so popular that only one of those stores had a copy in stock yesterday evening - all the other copies had been rented.
Of the eight stores contacted yesterday, only Laser Video in South Great George's Street in Dublin was aware of the legal problems with the video and the staff member who answered the phone clearly explained the problem when asked if the video was in stock.
Last night a spokesman for the film's distributors, the London-based Entertainment In Video, said the inclusion of the unclassified trailer was "an oversight" and that this had never happened with his company in the past.