Cinema to video

"Face/Off" (18)

John Woo's spectacular, balletic action movie operates from the clever, brilliantly sustained proposition of a psychotic bomber (Nicolas Cage) and an FBI agent (John Travolta) exchanging faces. The excitement is relentless in this hi-tech, adrenalin-pumping balletic adventure.

"Nil By Mouth" (18)

Directed by Gary Oldman, this raw, uncompromising and vividly acted South London drama features Ray Winstone as a volatile middle-aged man whose entire life revolves around drinking, drug-taking, scams and strip clubs. In the performance which won her best actress at Cannes last year, Kathy Burke expressively plays his despairing pregnant wife, the victim of his shocking domestic violence.

"Wilde" (18)

Brian Gilbert's shallow, heavy-handed biopic, scripted by Julian Mitchell, overstretches the abilities of Stephen Fry who plays Oscar Wilde as a weak man and a fey fop. Jude Law is altogether more effective as his cruel and petulant lover, Bosie.

"A Life Less Ordinary" (15) The third film from Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave and Trainspotting team is a disappointingly miscalculated romantic fantasy whose parts are more satisfying than its whole. The two leads give it their all: Ewan McGregor as a Scot who loses his job in the US and Camron Diaz as his boss's daughter whom he kidnaps.

"The Disappearance Of Finbar" (15)

Directed by Sue Clayton, who wrote the screenplay with Dermot Bolger, this diverting and well-acted quest movie features rising Irish star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as a cocky young Dublin soccer player who leaps off a flyover in Tallaght and re-surfaces in Stockholm - where his friend (Luke Griffin) begins his odyssey to find him.