"Actor: Billy Hughes"

• The Man Who Sued God | DVD | (01/12/2003) from £6.48   |  Saving you £4.77 (91.38%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Man Who Sued God defies simple definition, managing to be several types of movie all at the same time. As a theological-romantic-comedy-drama, it's in a somewhat unique category all of its own. Perhaps only Billy Connolly could carry off a central role that combines slapstick with raging anger, puppy-dog disappointment and strong language delivered in his distinctive accent. These facets of performance are used and abused in a tale that feels like it really ought to be based on a true story, but isn't. Connolly's life as a fisherman is sunk by the destruction of his boat by a bolt of lightning. The insurance company won't pay up because it falls under that age-old excuse of being an "Act of God". So Connolly decides to sue the deity. The premise raises issues about how the law and the church have apparently conspired together. But at heart the film is a simple character study, so any pondering on legal or theological implications will have to be done on your own time; the screen is occupied with family issues, underhand dealings and a maybe-maybe romance with Judy Davis. Big Yin fans at least will enjoy the Connolly's composite character. --Paul Tonks

• Convoy | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £14.23   |  Saving you £-0.24 (-1.70%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Even in the tiny genre of films based on songs, Convoy is a strange effort--CW McCall's 1977 CB radio-themed novelty hit was just a collection of trucker slang, but here it is gussied up by Sam Peckinpah (no less) as a big rig reprise of The Wild Bunch with Kris Kristofferson as trucker outlaw hero Rubber Duck and a wonderfully oversized Ernest Borgnine as "Dirty Lyle", the "bear" who hates "breakers" and finally decides to call in the National Guard to help him enforce traffic laws with machine guns. The plot is almost invisible, as Rubber Duck and his breaker buddies just up and decide to trundle their lorries across the Western States in a dash for Mexico (no one ever mentions delivering their loads to intended destinations) and becoming such a folk hero that the creepy governor (Seymour Cassell) tries to cash in. Kristofferson and Borgnine were old Peckinpah hands, as is heroine Ali MacGraw (a characterless photographer) and sidekick Burt Young ("Love Machine" aka "Pigpen"), and there's a lot of business about cops and outlaws who mirror each other, but the main attraction is the visuals--huge trucks rolling across desert roads in clouds of dust, police cars crashing through billboards, trucks demolishing a corrupt small town. There are traces of road-movie melancholia in the depressed cafes, jails and laybys where free spirits are broken, but it's still mostly a cash-in on Smokey and the Bandit with a few rags of poetry tossed into the mix. On the DVD: A letterboxed print, enhanced for 16x9, looks pretty good, with enough widescreen to get all the trucks into the image. But otherwise this is the sort of release that passes off "chapter search" and "multilingual menus" as extras, although there are basic filmographies for the principal and a poster/photo album. The mono soundtrack comes in English, French, Spanish and Italian. --Kim Newman

• Komodo | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-6.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  I think they're contesting our place in the food chain", quips an Imperilled teen at an especially low moment of Komodo, a regulation trapped-with-monsters straight-to-video quickie. There was a millennial blip of such nature-on-the-rampage horrors in the year 2000 and Komodo settles comfortably onto the shelf with King Cobra, Blood Surf, They Nest, Crocodile, Spiders and Octopus. If you've seen all of them, you'll probably want to see this too--but don't say we didn't warn you. Komodo familiarly packs a few no-name actors to an island supposedly off the shore of Carolina (actually somewhere in Australasia and has them menaced by CGI creatures, then fighting back and beating the beasts. Though the title gives away the nature of the menace, ex-effects technician-turned-director Michael Lantieri keeps the monsters off-screen and purportedly mysterious for half the running time. Teenage Patrick (Kevin Zegers) is traumatised by the deaths of parents (and his dog) and retreats into an amnesiac fugue, but his psychiatrist Victoria (Jill Hennessy) brings him back to the site of the tragedy to stir his memories. It turns out that the local evil oil company has always known that a bunch of giant, flesh-eating lizards were on the loose but kept quiet about it for nebulously nefarious purposes. Oates (Billy Burke), a rebellious company minion, hooks up with Patrick (who shows unexpected resourcefulness in whipping up lizard traps) and the shrink and they have a last-reel confrontation with the monsters that allow for some very distant echoes of Jurassic Park. The CGI and model work is seamless but the monsters have too little personality and, despite their voracious appetites, require all manner of contrivances to bring their victims within snapping distance. Nice bit at the end though with a gory if not dramatic finale. --Kim Newman