"Actor: fox"

• David Copperfield (Repackaged) | DVD | (23/01/2012) from £5.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Like many fond parents, I have in my heart a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield. Charles DickensAnd here in Dickens' own favourite and most enduring novel bursts onto screen in a dazzling adaptation, with a truly world-class cast bringing alive some of the most famous characters in fiction. Bob Hoskins as the ever-optimistic Mr Micawber; Maggie Smith as David's fearsome aunt, Betsey Trotwood; Trevor Eve as the sadistic Mr Murdstone; Nicholas Lyndhurst as sly, sinister Uriah Heap; Pauline Quirke as David's loyal friend and servant, Peggotty; and featuring Ciarn McMenamin as David, with Harry Lloyd (the 15 year old descendant of Charles Dickens himself) as the young Steerforth.

• Lost : Season 1 - Part 2 | DVD | (16/01/2006) from £5.98   |  Saving you £25.01 (418.23%)   |  RRP £30.99

  The concluding part of Lost: Season 1!. From J.J. Abrams the creator of Alias comes an action-packed adventure that will bring out the very best and the very worst in the people who are lost on a faraway desert island... Out of the blackness the first thing Jack (Matthew Fox) senses is pain. Then burning sun. A Bamboo forest. Smoke. Screams. With a rush comes the horrible awareness that the plane he was on tore apart in mid-air and crashed on a Pacific island. From

• Lost: The Complete Seasons 1-6 | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £110.89   |  Saving you £-62.45 (N/A%)   |  RRP £48.44

  Lost: Season One Along with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season Two What was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season Four Season four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season Five Since Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. FennessyLost: Season SixIt’s taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesn’t tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction.In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that it’s juggling lots of proverbial balls: there’s a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this boxset nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. There’s going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come… --Jon FosterSpecial Features TBC

• W.E. | DVD | (04/06/2012) from £6.92   |  Saving you £11.07 (159.97%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Madonna directs this rich, elegantly structured story of two women, decades apart, confronting the consequences of desire.

• The Mummy | DVD | (15/05/2003) from £6.20   |  Saving you £3.79 (61.13%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Set ten years after the original movie, adventurer Rick O'Connell's son is kidnapped by the followers of his old nemesis The Mummy, in the belief that the boy can lead them to the tomb of the ancient and evil warrior The Scorpion King.

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 3 Part 2 | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £7.29   |  Saving you £32.70 (448.56%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The second half of CSI's third season serves up generous amounts of the bizarre and depraved for our voyeuristic viewing pleasure: a man driving with a wooden spike in his head, ultra-violent Robot Wars, decomposing bodies in toxic waste drums and violent death during foam-soaked debauchery all add up to a typical night's work for the Las Vegas crime lab. Standout episodes include the 90-minute special, "Lady Heather's Box", in which Grissom renews his acquaintance with the sultry bordello madam and her world of S&M. But is the delightful dominatrix the murderer? In "Night at the Movies" the plot hinges on a reworking of a Hitchcock classic and in "Play with Fire" an explosion in the lab has disastrous consequences for the team. Personal concerns come to the fore in these 12 episodes more prominently than ever before (a contrast to the show's original single-minded focus on the cases). Here, Sara Sidle's paramedic boyfriend unwittingly reveals a guilty secret when he is involved in a devastating car accident ("Crash & Burn"); Warwick witnesses his boyhood mentor falling apart when the older man's daughter is killed in a drive-by shooting ("Random Acts of Violence"); Catherine Willows' daughter and ex-husband are caught up in more violence and mayhem; and Grissom finally has to admit that his hearing problem can no longer be ignored. A welcome development is the expansion of the CSI unit and the introduction of some new, albeit secondary, team members. Guest stars include Elizabeth Berkely ("Lady Heather's Box") and Bobcat Goldthwait ("Last Laugh"). The show remains unrivalled for slick, fast-paced entertainment. On the DVD: CSI, Series 3 Part 2 is a three-disc set with a handful of minor extra features. It has two frankly rather uninspiring episode commentaries featuring the directors, scriptwriters and other crew. Better are the two small featurettes--"Making It Real" and "The Writer's Room"--that shed more light on the making of the show. --Mark Walker

• A Bridge Too Far | Blu Ray | (01/01/2009) from £9.59   |  Saving you £3.40 (35.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A Bridge Too Far, Official UK region B release, includes trailers, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, widescreen 2:35:1

• A Passage to India | DVD | (06/05/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  From the acclaimed director of Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Passage To India was Sir David Lean's last ever feature film and a winner of two Oscars®.

• Shallow Grave | DVD | (06/04/2020) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Three friends push the boundaries of trust in this hermetically sealed shocker from the creators of Trainspotting. Starring Kerry Fox (The Hanging Garden), Christopher Eccleston (Elizabeth) and Ewan McGregor (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), Shallow Grave is a masterpiece of terror riddled with hairpin turns that takes you on a fantastic ride to the lowest depths of human nature. Juliet (Fox), David (Eccelston) and Alex (McGregor) find that their reclusive roommate has not left his bedroom for days. After kicking in the door they discover his drug over-dose . and a suitcase full of money! Fatefully choosing to keep the money, they know they have got to get rid of the remains. But the body won't stay buried and a careless trail from the shallow grave leads the police - and two money hungry thugs - back to the trio. And as the stakes get higher, so does the body count, not to mention their paranoia which is quickly putting their friendships in jeopardy.... forever!

• Jinnah (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (29/01/2024) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Duellists | DVD | (24/03/2003) from £13.38   |  Saving you £2.61 (19.51%)   |  RRP £15.99

  One of the great directorial debuts, Ridley Scott's The Duellists is an extraordinary achievement which weaves an epic-in-miniature set around the edges of the Napoleonic Wars. Based on a story by Joseph Conrad, in turn inspired by real events and filmed in part where those events took place, this is the tale of a 15-year conflict between two French army officers: the level-headed Armand D'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and the obsessive Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel). Each time they meet they duel, until the original purpose of the conflict is all but lost. Beyond the two American stars, who fill their roles with rare commitment--accents not withstanding--Scott assembled a stellar cast: Albert Finney, Edward Fox, Pete Postlethwaite, Diana Quick, Cristina Raines, Robert Stephens, Tom Conti, John McEnery, Maurice Colbourne and Jenny Runacre. The production values are astonishing and the film revels in the exquisite painterly visuals which have become a Scott trademark. Howard Blake's elegiac theme adds immeasurably to the impact of a film influenced by Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1974), and anticipating Scott's own Best Picture Oscar-winning Gladiator (2000). A haunting work of spectral beauty, it is also a worthy companion to Scott's shamefully neglected 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). On the DVD: The Duellists is transferred at 1.77:1 with full sound atmospherically remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1. A new 29-minute documentary finds Scott discussing The Duellists with Kevin (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) Reynolds, which is particularly enlightening given the relative merits of the two swashbucklers. Scott's absorbing commentary track provides an in-depth look into the film-making process. Equally, film music aficionados will be delighted to find not just an isolated music track, but an informative commentary by composer Howard Blake, though he does sometimes talk over the beginning or end of cues. Most unusual but very welcome is the inclusion of Scott's first short film, Boy and Bicycle (1965), a 25-minute b/w mood piece starring Tony Scott, with music by John Barry. Other extras are a storyboard-to-screen comparison, the American trailer and four galleries of posters, stills and production photos. --Gary S Dalkin

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (1-Disc) | DVD | (30/11/2009) from £4.49   |  Saving you £15.50 (345.21%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Decepticon forces return to Earth to take Sam Witwicky prisoner after he learns the truth about the Transformers' origins. Joining the mission to once again protect humankind is Optimus Prime and the Autobots.

• The Day of the Jackal | DVD | (04/04/2016) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  With its high-intensity plot about an attempt to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle, the bestselling novel by Frederick Forsyth was a prime candidate for screen adaptation. Director Fred Zinnemann brought his veteran skills to bear on what has become a timeless classic of screen suspense. Not to be confused with the later remake The Jackal starring Bruce Willis (which shamelessly embraced all the bombast that Zinnemann so wisely avoided), this 1973 thriller opts for lethal elegance and low-key tenacity in the form of the Jackal, the suave assassin played with consummate British coolness by Edward Fox. He's a killer of the highest order, a master of disguise and international elusiveness, and this riveting film follows his path to de Gaulle with an intense, straightforward documentary style. Perhaps one of the last great films from a bygone age of pure, down-to-basics suspense (and a kind of debonair European alternative to the American grittiness of The French Connection), The Day of the Jackal is a cat-and-mouse thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat until its brilliantly executed final scene (pardon the pun), by which time Fox has achieved cinematic immortality as one of the screen's most memorable killers. --Jeff Shannon

• Boat Trip | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £13.57   |  Saving you £6.42 (47.31%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jerry and Nick are two best buddies whose love lives have hit rock bottom. To escape their troubles and find women they book a trip on board a cruise-liner unaware the travel agent has just played a horrid trick-it's a gay cruise-liner for gay men to make out. And slowly but surely the dim-witted duo begin to realise this.

• The Dresser | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-0.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The lives and relationships of those within a British traditional touring stage company provide the backdrop for the 'The Dresser' nominated for 5 Oscars in 1983 a compelling study of intense relationship between the leader of the company and his dresser. Sir (Albert Finney) a grandiloquent old man of the theater has given his soul to his career but his tyrannical rule over the company is now beginning to crack under the strain of age and illness as he prepares for his 227th

• Shallow Grave | Blu Ray | (01/06/2009) from £10.78   |  Saving you £11.21 (103.99%)   |  RRP £21.99

  From the director of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire comes a masterpiece of terror. Starring Kerry Fox Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor this hermetically sealed shocker will take you on a fantastic ride that's riddled with hairpin turns. Juliet David and Alex find that their new reclusive roommate has not left the bedroom for days. After kicking in the door they discover this drug overdosed corpse... and a suitcase full of cash. Fatefully choosing to keep the money they know they have to get rid of the body. But the remains won't stay buried and a careless trail from the shallow grave leads the police and two money-hungry thugs-back to the trio. As the stakes get higher so does the body count not to mention their paranoia which is quickly putting their friendship in jeopardy...forever!

• Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen | Blu Ray | (30/11/2009) from £4.95   |  Saving you £22.04 (445.25%)   |  RRP £26.99

  Based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures. Sequel to TRANSFORMERS.

• The Lost World | DVD | (03/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Not the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, this Lost World is a splendid BBC TV dramatisation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous adventure story. Bob Hoskins makes an unusually genial Professor Challenger, far less of a bully than Doyle's character, but his slightly stereotyped companions are nicely filled out by a solid cast. James Fox is Challenger's more timid but still covertly adventurous rival, Tom Ward is the moustachioed big game hunter who faces an Allosaurus with an elephant gun, and Matthew Rhys plays the tagalong reporter hoping to impress his faithless fiancée. As usual, the adaptation adds a woman--orphaned jungle girl Elaine Cassidy--to the expedition, and an interesting villain (religious fanatic Peter Falk) beefs up the travelogue by marooning Challenger's gang on the South American plateau where dinosaurs, cavemen and Indians coexist eventfully. The Walking with Dinosaurs-style effects work well for the TV frame, but the real success is in integrating the Boys' Own adventuring with subtle eco-awareness, complex character interplay and the reliable wonder of soaring Pteranodons and Carnosaur attacks. --Kim Newman

• Soul Food | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £5.09   |  Saving you £7.90 (155.21%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Soul Food is the kind of movie that seems to have been blessed throughout its low-budget production and it has got a quality of warmth and charm that fits perfectly with its authentic drama about a large African-American family in Chicago. Twenty-eight-year-old writer-director George Tillman Jr. drew autobiographical inspiration from his upbringing in Milwaukee, and on a well-spent $6.5 million budget he succeeded where similar films (including Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back) fell short: he depicts his many characters with such depth and sympathy that, by the time they have weathered several family crises, we've come to care and feel for them and the powerful ties that bind them together. As seen through the eyes of Tillman's young alter ego Ahmad (Brandon Hammond), the film primarily focuses on the rivalries and affections that rise and fall among Ahmad's mother (Vivica A. Fox) and her two sisters (Vanessa L. Williams and Nia Long). Through them, and through the weekly Sunday dinners cooked with love by their mother, Big Mama (Irma P. Hall), we witness marital bliss and distress, infidelity, success, failure ... in short, the spices of life both bitter and sweet. But when Big Mama falls into a diabetic coma, Ahmad watches as his family begins to fall apart without the stability and love that Big Mama provided with every Sunday meal. Tillman's touch can be overly nostalgic, melodramatic and cloyingly sentimental, but never so much that the movie loses its firm grip on reality. As a universal portrait of family life, Soul Food ranks among the very best films of its kind--believable, funny, emotional and always approaching its characters (well-played by a uniformly excellent cast) with a generous spirit of forgiveness and understanding. As satisfying as one of Big Mama's delicious dinners, Soul Food is the kind of movie that keeps you coming back for more. --Jeff Shannon

• Welcome To Sarajevo | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £6.92   |  Saving you £-0.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Whether as a subject for historical investigation or social drama, the war in the former Yugoslavia is made for film, as 1997's Welcome to Sarajevo demonstrates. Inspired by the book Natasha's Story by ITN reporter Michael Nicholson, this takes very much a human-interest angle on the conflict. Stephen Dillane plays a journalist whose involvement moves from the professional to the personal as he faces up to marauding Serbian mercenaries, then family ties, to get the apparently orphaned Emira out of Sarajevo and back to the security of his own family in the UK. It could have been awash with journalists-are-good-guys-really sentiment, but director Michael Winterbottom is mindful to present the story in the context of the siege--some of the filming here is harrowingly realistic--and draws responsive performances from a cast including Woody Harrelson as a hard-living American reporter and Marisa Tomei as an aid worker determined to save children's lives at all costs. As a film about the "why" of the Yugoslavian war, Pretty Village, Pretty Flame is unsurpassed, but Welcome to Sarajevo is a potent look into the "how". On the DVD: Welcome to Sarajevo comes to DVD with a decent 16:9 anamorphic picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound that has the necessary immediacy. English subtitles are included, rightly so in a film of this nature. Special features include 30 minutes of interview snippets with cast and crew, "on location" sequences and three theatrical/TV trailers. --Richard Whitehouse