VideoDVD

The latest video releases reviewed.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE *****

 Directed by David Cronenberg. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Mario Bello, Ashton Holmes, Ed Harris, William Hurt 18 cert

Cronenberg borrows from the template of classic westerns as a man struggles to put his personal history of violence behind him in a gripping, thoughtful and morally complex drama that faces its protagonists - and its audience - with some hard questions. Mortensen, never more persuasive, heads an exemplary cast. Michael Dwyer

FLIGHTPLAN **

Directed by Robert Schwentke. Starring Jodie Foster, Sean Bean, Peter Sarsgaard 12 cert

After waking up from a doze, a passenger on a transatlantic flight (Foster) finds her daughter missing. The set-up, borrowed from The Lady Vanishes, is intriguing, but the writers' solution to the conundrum involves some of the most ludicrously perplexing narrative paroxysms ever committed to film. Donald Clarke

SARABAND ****

Directed by Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson 15 cert

A sort of sequel to Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, Saraband follows the interactions of four people in various degrees of existential despair as they gather at a remote retreat. Though we do get a few too many moments of unmanageable grimness, the customarily intense emotional skirmishes are as powerful as we expect from this director. Donald Clarke

MAD HOT BALLROOM ****

Directed by Marilyn Agrelo Gen cert

The progress of pre-teens from three New York schools is charted as they prepare for a ballroom dancing contest in an aborbing, touching film that catches their anxieties, determination and well-merited pride, and the liberating force of dance. Michael Dwyer

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED ***

Directed by Liev Schreiber. Starring Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin 15 cert

Actor Schreiber turns director with an appealing and often surprisingly funny film following the misadventures of an uptight young Jewish American (Wood) seeking out the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis in a Ukrainian town. Michael Dwyer

GUY X ***

Directed by Saul Metzstein. Starring Jason Biggs, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Northam, Michael Ironside 15 cert

This cynical black comedy, set in 1979, views the absurdities of life on a US military base in Greenland through the eyes of a rookie recruit (Biggs, impressive) sent there in error. While it offers an amusing satire on army life, it lacks the cutting edge of M*A*S*H, Catch-22 and Three Kings. Michael Dwyer

JUST LIKE HEAVEN *

Directed by Mark Waters. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo PG cert

Ruffalo plays a morose widower who moves into a new apartment and apparently sees the ghost of its former occupant (Witherspoon) in this inane and irritating would-be romantic comedy that defies logic and offers poor material to a good deal of talent on both sides of the camera. Michael Dwyer

CRY WOLF *

Directed by Jeff Wadlow. Starring Julian Morris, Lindy Booth,Jon Bon Jovi 15 cert

Bored rich prep school boarders devise an e-mail scheme to convince their fellow students that a killer is planning to strike on campus. Anyone familiar with the fable that gives Cry Wolf its title will suspect what to expect in a movie that's awash with red herrings and short on tension. Michael Dwyer