"Actor: Adolfo Lastretti"

• Shaft In Africa | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £21.29   |  Saving you £-7.30 (-52.20%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Shaft in Africa, the second sequel to the original hit, foreshadows itself early on when Shaft, asked to go undercover in Africa to halt a modern-day slave trade, claims that he's not James Bond but strictly Sam Spade. Bond, however, is the operative model here, with John Shaft masquerading as an Ethiopian to infiltrate the slave business and bring it down. Yet everyone he encounters seems to know who he is and wants to kill him--but the string of dead bodies he leaves in his wake across two continents proves that no one is able to stop everyone's favourite hip private eye. Written by Stirling Silliphant, the film is long on action set pieces that are filmed with more energy than the previous movie, Shaft's Big Score. Given contemporary practices involving smugglers of illegal Chinese and Mexican immigrants, the plot isn't all that far-fetched. Roundtree, as usual, is the picture of unflappable cool--but don't get him mad. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Lion Of The Desert | DVD | (05/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Destined to remain a dubious footnote in books of movie trivia, Lion of the Desert--an occasionally impressive epic from 1981--was financed with a budget of $35 million by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who previously attempted the role of movie producer with the critically roasted Mohammad: Messenger of God. This effort didn't fare much better (it grossed approximately $1 million worldwide), and although some of its wartime action sequences are intelligently filmed, it's not likely to gain much more of a reputation on home video. Under a shaggy Muslim beard, Anthony Quinn stars as Omar Mukhtar, the Arab hero and guerrilla fighter who defended Libya against Benito Mussolini and Italy's attempted conquests during World War II. As straightforward biography, the movie's got an admirable epic sweep, but a cliché-ridden script and uniformly bad performances (from a cast that includes John Gielgud, Oliver Reed and Rod Steiger) make this little more than a curiosity for those wanting to learn more about Libyan history. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com