"Actor: Adam Beach"

• Flags of our Fathers & Letters from Iwo Jima (4 Disc Special Edition) | DVD | (09/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  Thematically ambitious and emotionally complex, Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers is an intimate epic with much to say about war and the nature of heroism in America. Based on the non-fiction bestseller by James Bradley (with Ron Powers), and adapted by Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis (Jarhead screenwriter William Broyles Jr. wrote an earlier draft that was abandoned when Eastwood signed on to direct), this isn't so much a conventional war movie as it is a thought-provoking meditation on our collective need for heroes, even at the expense of those we deem heroic. In telling the story of the six men (five Marines, one Navy medic) who raised the American flag of victory on the battle-ravaged Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945, Eastwood takes us deep into the horror of war (in painstakingly authentic Iwo Jima battle scenes) while emphasizing how three of the surviving flag-raisers (played by Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe, and Jesse Bradford) became reluctant celebrities - and resentful pawns in a wartime publicity campaign - after their flag-raising was immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in the most famous photograph in military history. As the surviving flag-raisers reluctantly play their public roles as "the heroes of Iwo Jima" during an exhausting (but clearly necessary) wartime bond rally tour, Flags of Our Fathers evolves into a pointed study of battlefield valor and misplaced idolatry, incorporating subtle comment on the bogus nature of celebrity, the trauma of battle, and the true meaning of heroism in wartime. Wisely avoiding any direct parallels to contemporary history, Eastwood allows us to draw our own conclusions about the Iwo Jima flag-raisers and how their postwar histories (both noble and tragic) simultaneously illustrate the hazards of exploited celebrity and society's genuine need for admirable role models during times of national crisis. Flags of Our Fathers defies the expectations of those seeking a more straightforward war-action drama, but it's richly satisfying, impeccably crafted film that manages to be genuinely patriotic (in celebrating the camaraderie of soldiers in battle) while dramatising the ultimate futility of war. Eastwood's follow-up film, Letters from Iwo Jima, examines the Iwo Jima conflict from the Japanese perspective. Critically hailed as an instant classic, Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima is a masterwork of uncommon humanity and a harrowing, unforgettable indictment of the horrors of war. In an unprecedented demonstration of worldly citizenship, Eastwood (from a spare, tightly focused screenplay by first-time screenwriter Iris Yamashita) has crafted a truly Japanese film, with Japanese dialogue (with subtitles) and filmed in a contemplative Japanese style, serving as both complement and counterpoint to Eastwood's previously released companion film Flags of Our Fathers. Where the earlier film employed a complex non-linear structure and epic-scale production values to dramatise one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and its traumatic impact on American soldiers, Letters reveals the battle of Iwo Jima from the tunnel- and cave-dwelling perspective of the Japanese, hopelessly outnumbered, deprived of reinforcements, and doomed to die in inevitable defeat. While maintaining many of the traditions of the conventional war drama, Eastwood extends his sympathetic touch to humanise "the enemy," revealing the internal and external conflicts of soldiers and officers alike, forced by circumstance to sacrifice themselves or defend their honour against insurmountable odds. From the weary reluctance of a young recruit named Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) to the dignified yet desperately anguished strategy of Japanese commander Tadamichi Kuribayashi (played by Oscar-nominated The Last Samurai costar Ken Watanabe), whose letters home inspired the film's title and present-day framing device, Letters from Iwo Jima (which conveys the bleakness of battle through a near-total absence of colour) steadfastly avoids the glorification of war while paying honorable tribute to ill-fated men who can only dream of the comforts of home. --Jeff Shannon

• Windtalkers / Hart's War / Platoon | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Windtalkers: In 1942 several hundred Navajo Americans were recruited as Marines and trained to use their language as code. Marine Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage) is assigned to protect Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) - a Navajo code talker the Marines' new secret weapon. Enders' orders are to protect his code talker but if Yahzee should fall into enemy hands he's to protect the code at all costs. Against the backdrop of the horrific Battle of Saipan when capture is imminent Enders is forced to make a decision: if he can't protect his fellow Marine can he bring himself to kill him to protect the code? Harts War: Fourth generation war hero Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still as the camp's highest-ranking American officer he commands his fellow inmates keeping a sense of honour alive in a place where honour is easy to destroy all under the dangerous ever-watchful eye of SS Major Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war McNamara is silently planning waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country. Platoon: Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young naive American who upon his arrival in Vietnam quickly discovers that he must do battle not only with the Viet Cong but also with the gnawing fear physical exhaustion and intense anger growing within him. While his two commanding officers (Oscar-nominated Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe) draw a fine line between the war they wage against the enemy and the one they fight with each other the conflict chaos and hatred permeate Taylor suffocating his realities and numbing his feelings to man's highest value...life. Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Picture and based on the first-hand experience of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone Platoon is powerful intense and starkly brutal.

• The Big Empty | DVD | (02/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The middle of nowhere is a funny place to find yourself in.... John Person is a thirty something struggling actor living alone and facing eviction from his one room apartment in Hollywood. Behind on his rent and heavily in debt he goes against his better judgement - and that of his pretty neighbour Grace - and accepts an unsolicited offer from his strange neighbour Neely to courier a blue suitcase up to the desert truck stop of Baker California. There in the mddle of nowh

• Defintive Edition - Windtalkers | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £9.43   |  Saving you £3.56 (27.40%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater star in the new film from action supremo John Woo as two U.S. Marines in WWII assigned to protect Navajo Marines who know a secret radio code.

• Steve Austin Collection | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £14.83   |  Saving you £5.16 (25.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Born To Fight: Grizzled ex-boxer Dan Barnes (Steve Austin) thinks his glory days are behind him. Working as a school janitor seems to offer little in the way of excitement. But when he begins coaching the bullied new kid Matthew in a bid to turn him into a boxing champion Barnes proves how tough his really is. The Stranger: Pro wrestling legend Steve Austin stars as a man with no name no memory and absolutely nothing left to lose. But when he finds himself hunted by both the FBI and the Russian mob this amnesiac decides to fight back. Pursuit cannot stop him. Torture will not break him. And with every beating bullet and betrayal he'll remember another piece of the horror that took away his career his family and his identity. Now the puzzle is nearly complete and one man is about to take back his past... by ending a whole lot of futures. Erica Cerra (Eureka) and Adam Beach (Flags Of Our Fathers) star in this explosive action-thriller about collateral damage stone cold vengeance and a double-crossed killing machine known only as The Stranger. Hunt To Kill: Steve Austin (The Expendables The Stranger) stars as U.S. Border Patrol agent Jim Rhodes a tough divorcee mourning the loss of his murdered partner while struggling to raise his rebellious daughter in the mountains of Montana. But when a crew of trigger-happy fugitives takes Rhodes and the girl hostage a rugged wilderness will explode in all-terrain vengeance. Gil Bellows (The Shawshank Redemption) Emilie Ullerup (Sanctuary) former kickboxing champion Gary Daniels (Tekken The Expendables) and Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight The Expendables) co-star in this bone-snapping bullet-blasting ass-kicking action/thriller where the only rule of survival is Hunt To Kill.

• Flags Of Our Fathers | HD DVD | (09/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  One shot can end a war February 1945. Even as victory in Europe was finally within reach the war in the Pacific raged on. One of the most crucial and bloodiest battles of the war was the struggle for the island of Iwo Jima which culminated with what would become one of the most iconic images in history: five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. The inspiring photo capturing that moment became a symbol of victory to a nation that had grown weary of war and made instant heroes of the six American soldiers at the base of the flag some of whom would die soon after never knowing that they had been immortalized. But the surviving flag raisers had no interest in being held up as symbols and did not consider themselves heroes; they wanted only to stay on the front with their brothers in arms who were fighting and dying without fanfare or glory. 'Flags of Our Fathers' is based on the bestselling book by James Bradley with Ron Powers which chronicled the battle of Iwo Jima and the fates of the flag raisers and some of their brothers in Easy Company.