"Actor: William Allen Young"

• Fear X | DVD | (28/06/2004) from £9.30   |  Saving you £9.68 (153.41%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Security guard Harry Caine (Turturro) is desperately searching for a reason behind the murder of his wife. He spends his nights watching CCTV footage to find a face that might give him a clue. His walls are plastered with 'suspects' but when he closes in on one who might be the killer his world is turned upside down once again...

• The Day After | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The TV drama that had America mesmerised in the 80's about what could possibly happen after a nuclear bomb hits.

• Lock Up | DVD | (20/05/2002) from £15.50   |  Saving you £-2.51 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The 1980s was the make-and-break decade for Sylvester Stallone's career, and Lock Up typifies the direction he took in his post-Rocky and Rambo days. It's a concept movie in the same mould as Rambo III just before it, and Tango & Cash just after. The hero (Frank Leone) is put in jeopardy (Gateway Prison), establishes a nemesis to defeat (in the shape of Donald Sutherland as Warden Drumgoole), makes a few friendships that can be sacrificed along the way (Tom Sizemore as Dallas) and does what he does in the name of love (Darlanne Flugel as Melissa). The revenge-twisted warden puts him through hell over a shared back-story. The torture ranges from being made to hold his breath in a delousing chamber to sanity-stretching periods in "The Hole". It's all about how far a man can be pushed. But being a Stallone vehicle, it's not all depressing. Composer Bill Conti reunites with the star to put the same sort of heroic fuel behind a prison-yard football game as he did for Rocky. A couple of feel-good songs pep up the love story and a montage of camaraderie in rebuilding a broken-down car. There's a healthy sense of realism achieved by having Sly doing all his own stunts and the use of a real-life prison. If the elements lead to a by-the-numbers conclusion (it's no Shawshank Redemption), remember this was some years before the actor wanted to get serious. On the DVD: A surprising amount of footage has been assembled in the two behind-the-scenes featurettes: we see Stallone directing his own fight scenes, and how use of New Jersey's Rahway Prison came with 2,500 real inmates to keep under control. Sound bite interviews reveal Stallone's worldly philosophies, then a trailer and gallery of 17 photos round out a decent overall package. --Paul Tonks

• Stalking Laura | DVD | (01/04/2002) from £6.22   |  Saving you £-0.23 (-3.80%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Laura has her degree her job in Silicon Valley and it's time to leave home. Everything is fine until she meets Richard Farley who will not leave her alone...

• Jagged Edge | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (93.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jagged Edge was one of a series of entertaining if porous thrillers crafted by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas before he wrote the ridiculous Showgirls. This 1985 movie is a taut mystery about an attorney (Glenn Close) who defends a newspaper publisher (Jeff Bridges) accused of murder. The fact that Close's character falls for him is more convenient than plausible, but it is a necessary emotional bridge for Eszterhas and director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) to build toward a powerful finale. Scary, fun as courtroom dramas go, the film is well serviced by the two lead stars and has impressive support from co-star Peter Coyote and especially from Robert Loggia, who plays Close's cop buddy. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• A Soldier's Story | DVD | (04/10/2010) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-0.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Charles Fuller adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play for the big screen in 1984. The film version, A Soldier's Story is essentially a murder mystery, played out against a background of inter and intra-racial conflict at a Second World War training camp. To the consternation of his white opposite number at the camp, a black captain (Howard W Rollins) arrives to investigate the death of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar). Suspicion immediately falls on a pair of bigoted white officers but as the tale unfolds in a series of flashbacks, it soon becomes clear that a different kind of prejudice is also at work. Assisted by some excellent performances, director Norman Jewison opens the story out from its stage roots. There's a wonderful baseball scene (filmed on location at Little Rock) in which the double standards of Dennis Lipscomb's fidgety white captain are exposed with neat irony; he'll cheer his successful black team all the way home in the name of sport. His gradual, forced liberalisation provides the film with an important comic element. A Soldier's Story wears its heart on its sleeve without being superficial in any way. It's a compelling tale, well told and often highly entertaining, in which nobody gets off lightly, least of all the good guy. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation helps give an epic feel to what could, in other hands, have been a claustrophobic production. The picture quality is fine. But the monaural sound track is often rather muffled, leaving you straining to catch some of the dialogue. This is also a shame because the blues music--an inspired job by Herbie Hancock, assisted by Patti Labelle singing her lungs out as bar owner Big Mary--is an important element of the film's underlying theme and deserves to be better heard. The extras are valuable. Norman Jewison's commentary is detailed and sensitive. As he says, the film deals with "ideas in racism never seen on screen before", and he acknowledges the strength of his actors in getting those ideas across. "March to Freedom" is an excellent short documentary which features the moving testimonies of black servicemen on the insufferable prejudices they encountered while attempting to defend their country during the Second World War; A Soldier's Story is thus put sharply into context. --Piers Ford

• Sins - Complete | DVD | (25/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Helene Junot is rich beautiful powerful and envied for her success but is surrounded by enemies who seek to destroy her. As a young girl Helene witnessed the murder of her mother was seperated from her brother and sister and was herself both beaten and raped by the Nazi's in Paris. Helene now a fully grown woman meets a photographer who puts her on the road to fame as the hottest model in Paris until she turns her hand to design and becomes a director of a top fashion house. Helene attracts many men both good and bad especially in the case of Count De Ville but she meets an American Officer on his way to Vietnam and falls madly in love but happiness eludes her as she is forced to borrow money to pay a famed Nazi hunter to track down her long lost brother who has spent 15 years in a mental institution. Helene's empire flourishes but the ruthlessness and calculative ambition in business and her quest for revenge costs her dear as she has to deal with her many enemies as her life enters a new dimension when she has to fight for her own survival and that of her empire.

• Lies Before Kisses | DVD | (01/04/2002) from £5.48   |  Saving you £0.51 (9.31%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When a prominent businessman is accused of murdering a prostitute his wife turns to an investigative reporter for help in clearing her husband's name. Instead she is drawn into a vacuum of betrayal passion and obsession where no relationship is as it seems...

• A Soldier's Story | DVD | (17/08/2009) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (-66.60%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Charles Fuller adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play for the big screen in 1984. The film version, A Soldier's Story is essentially a murder mystery, played out against a background of inter and intra-racial conflict at a Second World War training camp. To the consternation of his white opposite number at the camp, a black captain (Howard W Rollins) arrives to investigate the death of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar). Suspicion immediately falls on a pair of bigoted white officers but as the tale unfolds in a series of flashbacks, it soon becomes clear that a different kind of prejudice is also at work. Assisted by some excellent performances, director Norman Jewison opens the story out from its stage roots. There's a wonderful baseball scene (filmed on location at Little Rock) in which the double standards of Dennis Lipscomb's fidgety white captain are exposed with neat irony; he'll cheer his successful black team all the way home in the name of sport. His gradual, forced liberalisation provides the film with an important comic element. A Soldier's Story wears its heart on its sleeve without being superficial in any way. It's a compelling tale, well told and often highly entertaining, in which nobody gets off lightly, least of all the good guy. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation helps give an epic feel to what could, in other hands, have been a claustrophobic production. The picture quality is fine. But the monaural sound track is often rather muffled, leaving you straining to catch some of the dialogue. This is also a shame because the blues music--an inspired job by Herbie Hancock, assisted by Patti Labelle singing her lungs out as bar owner Big Mary--is an important element of the film's underlying theme and deserves to be better heard. The extras are valuable. Norman Jewison's commentary is detailed and sensitive. As he says, the film deals with "ideas in racism never seen on screen before", and he acknowledges the strength of his actors in getting those ideas across. "March to Freedom" is an excellent short documentary which features the moving testimonies of black servicemen on the insufferable prejudices they encountered while attempting to defend their country during the Second World War; A Soldier's Story is thus put sharply into context. --Piers Ford