Video Releases

Blue Streak

Directed by Les Mayfield Starring Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson

Shamelessly derivative comedy thriller which rolls out every cliche from the cob-webbed template established by Eddie Murphy in the 1980s in such brain-candy as Beverly Hills Cop. Lawrence is the black guy sent to work in a new police station - he's actually a jewel thief and he's trying to get back the loot he stashed there years before. The only redeeming feature in this tiresome formula is Wilson's likeable performance as Lawrence's gormless sidekick.

Jakob the Liar

Directed by Peter Kassovitz Starring Robin Williams, Liev Schrieber, Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban

It comes as a welcome surprise that Kassovitz's film, while no masterpiece, avoids the sentimental excesses one might have feared from a "Holocaust comedy" starring Robin Williams. Set in the Jewish ghetto of an unnamed Polish city in the winter of 1944, with most of the population already deported to the camps, it stars Williams as a man who fabricates stories of impending liberation, bringing hope for the first time but also sowing dissension among those who have reconciled themselves to certain death.

Bicentennial Man

Directed by Christopher Columbus Starring Robin Williams, Sam Neill, Embeth Davidtz, Oliver Platt

After the relative restraint of Jakob the Liar, Williams is back to his awful worst in this sci-fi weepie, as a domestic robot who starts to show some signs of independent thought, which leads his owner (Neill) to encourage him to develop his creative impulses. This starts a lengthy process - a mere 200 years in the story, although it feels like an eternity for the viewer - in which Williams evolves from a domestic appliance into, well, Robin Williams. Whether this can be regarded as progress is a moot point.