NEWDVDS

The latest DVD releases reviewed.

HEADING SOUTH/VERS LE SUD ****

Directed by Laurent Cantet. Starring Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal, Menothy Cesar 18 cert

In Cantet's thoughtful, provocative picture of sex tourists in late 1970s Haiti, the predators are middle-aged North American women jealously competing for a local beach boy. Set against the corruption and intimidation of the Baby Doc Duvalier dictatorship, this fine film features outstanding performances from Rampling and Young as the most sexually demanding - and needy - of the visitors. Michael Dwyer

THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU ****

Directed by Cristi Puiu. Starring Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminta Gheorghiu 15 cert

Only a dedicated paramedic shows any concern for an ailing 62-year-old widower as he is shuttled from one hospital to another on a busy Saturday night in Bucharest. Writer-director Puiu's abrasive black comedy turns progressively darker as the hapless patient is faced with bureaucracy and indifference at every turn. Michael Dwyer

HARD CANDY ***

Directed by David Slade Starring Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh 18 cert

Slade's stylish thriller sees Page's precocious teenager tying up Wilson, a photographer she met on the internet, and setting about his lower parts with a scalpel. Ouch! The film, well performed by both leads, works as a piece of high-class exploitation, but is a little too silly to function as any sort of comment on sexual politics. Donald Clarke

FORTY SHADES OF BLUE ***

Directed by Ira Sachs. Starring Rip Torn, Dina Korzun, Darren Burrows, Paprika Steen. 15 cert

The scene is set for dramatic fireworks when the estranged adult son (Burrows) of a celebrated Memphis record producer (Torn) is drawn to his father's Russian lover (Korzun). Director Sachs takes a low-key approach to this melodramatic scenario, concentrating on it as a chamber piece and character study in which Torn and Korzun are riveting. Michael Dwyer

ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN **

Directed by Carlos Saldanha. Voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck G cert

This indifferently animated sequel to an only so-so original has our alliteratively named heroes - Sid the Sloth, etc - desperately trying to escape the flooding of their low-lying home. Younger children will probably enjoy it well enough. Their older siblings, spoilt rotten by Pixar, may sniff derisively throughout. Donald Clarke

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT **

Directed by Justin Lin. Starring Lucas Black, Nathalie Kelley, Sonny Chiba, Brian Tee, Sung Kang 12 cert

Vroom! Screech! The latest spasm of automotive pornography from the Fast and the Furious franchise has some fun with its Tokyo locations and the car chases are top notch. But the dialogue, never to be confused with Pinter, is dumber than ever before. The preposterously busy two-disc edition should do very nicely in Northern Ireland and other petrol-addiction black spots. Donald Clarke

ATOMISED/ELEMENTARTEILCHEN **

Directed by Oskar Roehler Starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Ulmen, Martina Gedeck, Franka Potente 15 cert

Two brothers, one shy, the other dissolute, cope badly with contemporary angst. Michel Houellebecq's source novel was, in several figurative senses of the word, forehead-numbingly cool. Roehler's German film, featuring broad characterisation and unintended Carry-On humour, could not be more naff. The sequences in "Ireland" are particularly clumsy. Donald Clarke

THE OMEN *

Directed by John Moore. Starring Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon 15 cert

Moore's useless remake of Richard Donner's 1976 Exorcist rip-off, in which a diplomat and his wife (Schreiber and Stiles, replacing Gregory Peck and Lee Remick) unknowingly bring up the Devil's son, owes its existence to a quirk of the calendar. It was released on (shudder) 06/06/06. Now, Halloween aside, there really is no reason to even glance at the wretched thing, set in London but filmed largely in Prague. The DVD also comes in a boxed set with the many earlier Omen films. Donald Clarke