"Actor: Wendy Phillips"

• Midnight Run | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a tough ex-cop turned bounty hunter. Jonathan ""The Duke"" Mardukas (Charles Grodin) is a sensitive accountant who embezzled $15 million from the Mob gave it to charity and then jumped bail. Jack's in for a cool $100 000 if he can deliver the Duke from New York to L.A. on time. And alive. Sounds like just another Midnight Run (a piece of cake in bounty hunter slang) but it turns into a cross-country chase. The FBI is after the Duke to testify - the Mob is after him for revenge - and Walsh is after him to just shut up. If someone else doesn't do the job the two unlikely partners may end up killing each other in this hilarious action-filled blockbuster from producer-director Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop).

• Bugsy | DVD | (09/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of director, writer and star on a project that represents a career highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realise them--or at least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply mesmerising as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here, guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears. --Jeff Shannon

• Midnight Run | DVD | (24/07/2000) from £9.98   |  Saving you £10.01 (100.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Martin Brest rocketed to the top of Hollywood's A list with the blockbuster success of Beverly Hills Cop, and this 1988 follow-up is even better. Midnight Run is a genuine rarity--an action comedy that's dramatically satisfying--thanks to a sharp script by George Gallo, the superb teaming of Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin, and Brest's consummate skill in combining suspense and humour with well-developed characters. De Niro plays a maverick bounty hunter whose latest assignment is Grodin, an accountant accused of embezzling from the Mob. De Niro thinks he's in for an easy job, transporting Grodin (who's afraid to fly) from New York to Los Angeles, but soon discovers that both the FBI and the Mafia are hot on Grodin's trail. Equal parts road trip, action thriller, and a quirky character study, Midnight Run moves at a breakneck pace but still gives De Niro and Grodin time to create rich, memorable performances as two men who seem to be opposites, but gradually develop mutual respect and admiration. Mainstream entertainment at its best. --Jeff Shannon

• Lucky Break / Very Annie Mary | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Lucky Break Small time villians Jimmy and Rudy are caught doing a bank raid and are put in HM Prison Long Rudford. Whilst there they hatch an escape plan which involves them staging the prison governor's musical 'Nelson'. Very Annie Mary Tells the story of Annie Mary a woman in her early thirties living in the Rhondda Valley South Wales who is forced to make changes in her life when her father suffers a major stroke. The future of the family business is left in her hands and so she hatches a plan to raise money the only way she can.

• Bugsy | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of director, writer and star on a project that represents a career highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realise them--or at least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply mesmerising as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here, guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears. --Jeff Shannon