"Actor: Richard Stahl"

• Five Easy Pieces | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £16.36   |  Saving you £-10.37 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This subtle, existential character study of an emotionally distant outcast (Nicholson) forced to confront his past failures remains an intimate cornerstone of American cinema of the 1970s. Written and directed with remarkable restraint by Bob Rafelson, the film is the result of a short-lived partnership between the filmmaker and Nicholson--the first was the zany formalist exercise, Head, while the equally impressive King of Marvin Gardens followed Five Easy Pieces. Quiet and full of long, controlled takes, this film draws its strength from the acutely detailed, non-judgemental observations of its complex protagonist, Robert Dupea--an extremely crass and frustrated oil worker and failed child pianist hiding from his past in Texas. Dupea spends his life drinking beer and sleeping with (and cheating on) his annoying but adoring Tammy Wynette-wannabe girlfriend, but when he learns that his father is dying in Washington State, he leaves. After the film transforms into a spirited road movie, and arrives at the eccentric upper-class Dupea family mansion, it becomes apparent that leaving is what Dupea does best--from his problems, fears and those who love him. Nicholson gives a difficult yet masterful performance in an unlikeable role, one that's full of ambiguity and requires violent shifts in acting style. Several sequences--such as his stopping traffic to play piano, or his famous verbal duels with a cranky waitress over a chicken-salad sandwich--are Nicholson landmarks. Yet, it's the quieter moments, when Dupea tries miserably to communicate and reconcile with his dying father, where the actor shows his real talent--and by extension, shows us the wounded little boy that lurks in the shell of the man Dupea has become. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com

• The Flamingo Kid | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-8.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  As The Flamingo Kid amply demonstrates, there's always room for one more rites of passage film if it's made with care and affection. Garry Marshall's 1984 study of a young Brooklyn poker player who thinks the grass is greener at a Long Island beach club, nails the bad guy, realises he got it wrong and returns to the bosom of his "humble" family certainly satisfies on both counts. It also has a strong cast: Matt Dillon as Jeffrey, whose niggling aspirations create the inevitable barrier between himself and his parents; Richard Crenna as his prospective role model who turns out to have feet of clay; and Hector Elizondo as his bemused father. But Jessica Walter (Clint Eastwood's stalker from hell in Play Misty for Me) almost steals the show as an acid-tongued beach-club wife. If the whole thing lacks the depth and warmth of, say, Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, it succeeds on its own merits as an homage to a more innocent time when a young man didn't need to stray far from his own tenement block in order to find himself, with the help of a suitably nostalgic early-1960s soundtrack of course. On the DVD: As far as extras go, this is a budget offering. There are detailed actor biographies but precious little on the film itself, apart from the snippet that Richard Crenna earned a Golden Globe award nomination. There is an adequate scene index and, for those who want to study Dillon in detail, a reasonable stills gallery. The picture is presented in standard format, and hardly distinguishable from ordinary VHS or telecast quality, but the stereo audio certainly helps pump out the period soundtrack. --Piers Ford

• Tough And Deadly | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £-0.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  When bounty hunter Elmo Freech saves a badly injured man from an assassins bullet as he lies in a hospital bed it's the start of a breakneck chain of brutal combat and furious action. Struck with amnesia the man Freech rescues can remember only one thing - his CIA codename 'Quicksilver'. Coupled with his lightening fast martial arts skills Freech realises that this guy is trouble especially after a crack hit-squad from a ruthless Milan Mafia family strike with orders to kill Quicksilver. Soon Freech and Quicksilver are taking on the CIA assassins and Mafia muscle as they try to expose an unholy alliance between the two. Freech and Quicksilver - back in action and tough and deadly...

• Gunshy | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Charlie (Liam Neeson) is a legendary undercover agent who has been involved in more drug busts than he cares to remember except that his instinct for danger cool composure and nerves of steel have failed him. In this his final assignment a number of larger-than-life characters are drawn together for a comic story of drug deals. The combination of a trigger-happy Mafia hitman and cocky Columbian drug barons leaves Charlie in too deep. In an attempt to pull off his last mission before he loses the plot completely Charlie seeks a hilariously funny self-help therapy group and the aid of sexy nurse Judy (Sandra Bullock) in this comical gangster movie.