Books always take longer to write than you expect them to. Consequently, with a deadline looming, there's little time for considered opinions this week. Instead, here is a cursory glance at the many minor and downright mediocre DVDs that have arrived in the post over the last few weeks. There are a couple of gems in there somewhere. You'll soon spot them. Normal service to be resumed soon.

BASELINE A BritCrime flick without Danny Dyer is something of a rarity and this is a solid entry in a genre that has fatally fallen foul of the law of diminishing returns. Club bouncer Freddie Connor saves boss Jamie Foreman's life and is rewarded with a plum job inside his nefarious organisation, alongside wheeler-dealing oppo Dexter Fletcher. However, Connor would rather romance nurse Zoe Tapper and quickly realises how exposed his new status has left him when jailbird Gordon Alexander is released and comes looking to settle an old score. Producing, as well as co-writing the script, Connor acquits himself well as the reluctant thug, while an experienced cast (that includes a cameoing Gary Stretch) handles the Mockney clichés and stereotypes with coarse competence. Clearly everyone enjoyed the experience, as they moved on, almost en masse, to Rishi Opel's The Grind, which is due for release later in the year.

THE BATTLE OF NERETVA & THE BATTLE OF SUTJESKA Directed by Veljko Bulajic and Stipe Delic in 1969 and 1973 respectively, these are rather muddled accounts of two key battles that decided the fate of Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Then the most expensive picture to be produced in Eastern Europe outside the Soviet Union, the first is easily the best. However, it has been so bowdlerised down the years that it's hardly surprising if it feels a bit creaky in places - even though this version runs for 158 minutes, compared to the 175 original and the 102 international release print.

The action takes place between January and April 1943 in the Nazi-occupied province of Herzegovina and centres on an Axis attempt to eliminate the Partisans putting up stiff resistance to imposed rule. Yul Brynner is typically imposing as a sabotage specialist, while Sergei Bondarchuk (who had just finished directing War and Peace) provides sound support as a temperamental artillery expert. But Bulajic tries to juggle too many subplots, with the consequence that they either distract from the military operations or get lost between them. Sylva Koscina's romance with Lojze Rozman is a case in point, while Italian captain Franco Nero's reluctance to serve a cause in which he doesn't believe is too similar to Wehrmacht colonel Hardy Krüger's growing disenchantment with the war's morality.

The highlights are provided by the imposing combat sequences, which benefit from thousands of extras and plenty of authentic hardware. Bulajic and cinematographer Tomislav Pinter also make effective use of the mountainscapes and the changing seasons. However, for pure blood and thunder, it's hard to beat the scenes between Chetnik senator Orson Welles and Fascist general Curd Jürgens, although Bernard Herrmann's score (which was supplemented by Vladimir Kraus-Rajteric) has a darn good try.

The film was sanctioned by Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and his wartime heroics are commemorated in The Battle of Sutjeska, which was made to mark the rearguard's 30th anniversary. Stipe Delic, who had shot the second unit footage for the first outing, was promoted to direct. But this turned out to be his sole feature and it's easy to see why, although he's not helped by a confused scenario that included contributions by Sergei Bondarchuk and Wolf Mankowitz and was rewritten at the insistence of Richard Burton to take into account FWD Deakin's first-hand memoir of the campaign, The Embattled Mountain.

Burton is improbably cast as the pugnacious marshal, who united Partisans from across the disparate regions to resist Operation Fall Schwarz, which took place on the Bosnian plains between May and June 1943. But, once again, the plethora of secondary incident confounds the continuity. The love interest is provided this time by Bata Zivojinovic and Milena Dravic, while Irene Papas briefly reprises the intrepidity seen in The Guns of Navarone (1961) as a feisty freedom fighter. Further reckless courage comes from Stole Arandjelovic and Relja Basic, while the Nazi dastardy is capably delivered by the ever-reliable Gunter Meisner and Anton Diffring.

As before, the battle sequences are well populated and equipped and ably photographed by Tomislav Pinter, with a hill assault that culminates in a titanic hand-to-hand struggle being the pick. But Mikis Theodorakis's score (which draws on patriotic songs) is less rousing than Herrmann's and Burton's disinterested performance hardly suggests a man who was inspired to make the picture after meeting Tito.

THE BOLD AND THE BRAVE One of the last features produced by RKO, this spirited 1956 war drama earned Oscar nominated for both screenwriter Robert Lewin and Mickey Rooney, who supplemented his supporting actor role by directing a few uncredited scenes alongside Lewis R. Foster and composing the theme song. Sombrely photographed by Sam Leavitt and bullishly scored by Herschel Burke Gilbert, the action takes place in a US holding camp in Italy before the big push. Much of it is verbose and unconvincing. But there are moments of poignancy and few contemporary combat pictures delved so deeply into the soldier's psyche.

Rooney effervesces as the New Yorker revelling in army life and determined to win enough shooting craps to open a restaurant with his doting wife. Being married doesn't stop him womanising in the nearby town on furlough, however, with kept man Wendell Corey also flirting with signorinas like Nicole Maurey, who fleece troops for all they have to feed their families back home. Corey hires Maurey to charm stuffed-shirt sergeant Don Taylor, as a thank you gift for saving his life. But the bible-bashing greenhorn, who can only see things in terms of good and evil, learns the truth and his simmering resentment impacts upon the unit's first mission.

Never the most expressive of actors, Taylor is the weak link in this otherwise thoughtful picture. The screenplay raises some interesting issues about the morality of war, but the lack of psychological depth places the emphasis firmly on melodrama, whether it's Taylor's gauche passion for Maurey, Corey's sense of masculine inadequacy or Rooney's sudden maturation on winning a bundle in the film's slickest scene. That said, the most influential was the advance through the misty woodland, which inspired the suit of armour attack on the Germans in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

BREAKING AWAY Earning Steve Tesich an Oscar for his autobiographical screenplay, Peter Yates's 1979 rite of passage pitches somewhere between American Graffiti (1973) and Say Anything... (1989). But Yates also captures the small-town atmosphere that has been key to so much feel-good American cinema, while also conveying the last summer anxieties of wannabe cyclist Dennis Christopher's pals as precisely as the competition between Bloomington, Indiana's townie cutters and its campus jocks. Consequently, the climactic Little 500 race becomes as much a tribal showdown as an athletic contest, which is what all good sport should be.

The story centres on four teenage buddies: star quarterback Dennis Quaid, serial failure Daniel Stern, cocky shorthouse Jackie Earle Haley and the driven Christopher, whose obsession with cycling is matched only by his passion for all things Italian. Having just left school, they hang around the ol' swimming hole daunted by the prospect of making their way in a world they know precious little about. But not only does Christopher know what he wants to do with his life, but he is also supported by parents Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie, whose enduring romance is charmingly contrasted with their son's awkward attempts to serenade Robyn Douglass with snatches from the same opera they are enjoying back home.

Such subtlety characterises a film that is less feel good than feels right, as Yates and Tesich recreate the uncertainties, rivalries and enthusiasms of youth with a fondness that never lapses into patronising nostalgia. The juvenile quartet is splendid. But Dooley and the Oscar-nominated Barrie excel in the kind of empathetic, but authentic parental roles that modern film-makers seem to have forgotten how to create. Ranked by many among the top 10 sports movies ever produced, this tackles universal themes with simplicity and sincerity. But its town vs gown subtext should hold a particular fascination for Oxford audiences.

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE Released in 1980, this is one of the infamous nasties that raised the hackles of the conservative press and the BBFC in the early days of video. A far cry from brutal gorefests like Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Antonio Margheriti's most maligned outing is set in Atlanta, Georgia rather than the Amazonian rainforests and feels more like a vigilante veteran actioner than a horror shocker. Indeed, little has been cut from the original, although the image of a rat being torched by a flame thrower has been omitted on the grounds of animal cruelty.

Opening with Special Forces captain John Saxon rescuing POWs Giovanni Radice and Tony King from a caged pit during the Vietnam War, the scene shifts to the present day, as Saxon becomes increasingly worried about his penchant for raw meat. Having already disconcerted spouse Elizabeth Turner, Saxon is sufficiently freaked by a toothsome encounter with frisky neighbour Cinzia De Carolis that he checks into a downtown hospital for some tests. However, his arrival coincides with Radice's reunion with King following a manic gnawing spree to mark his first day of freedom after being pronounced cured of his cannibalistic tendencies. Recognising his onetime brothers in arms, Saxon springs them from confinement and, with ravenous nurse May Heatherly in tow, they embark upon a murderous spree that cranky cop Wallace Wilkinson is hell bent on stopping.

The splatter quotient is pretty high here, with the gas station carving sequence and Radici's gruesome demise being cult favourites. But the versatile Margheriti is as much more interested in the ramifications of post-traumatic stress disorder than he is with torn flesh and, consequently, this becomes a touch verbose between the set-pieces. The dependable Saxon again demonstrates why he was such an exploitation stalwart, but he is upstaged by the rampaging Radice and the testy Wilkinson, as well as Gianetto Di Rossi's make-up effects.

CARGO Made on a shoestring and making no bones about its debts to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Solaris (1972), Swiss duo Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter's directorial debut will intrigue aficionados and leave non-genre fans colder than the hold carrying the cargo imperilling the transporter craft Kassandra's eight-year voyage from a decimated Earth to Space Station 42. Hoping to raise the cash to join sister Maria Boettner on the privileged planet of Rhea, doctor Anna-Katharina Schwabroh has signed on for the mission, despite a threat from the subversive Machine Striker group. However, a disturbance on her watch prompts her to wake captain Pierre Semmler from his cryo-sleep and his murder clues security guard Martin Rapold that one of the crew has a sinister agenda.

Imaginatively designed by Matthias Noger and archly photographed by Ralph Baetschmann and Michael Scialpi's special effects unit to disguise the cheapness of the production, this tries to generate the thrills of an Alien (1979) or Event Horizon (1997). But while Engler and Etter seek to address such pressing themes as pollution, terrorism and the fate of humanity, their dialogue is far less impressive than the visuals, with the consequence that an eager cast often finds itself as adrift inside the ship as it is during the ambitious space walk finale.

THE DINNER PARTY Inspired by Anu Singh's 1997 murder of boyfriend Joe Cinque, Scott Murden's feature bow is primarily notable for the fact that he managed to complete it for just $200,000 after the Australian Film Commission withdrew its funding because of the contentious subject matter. However, he never comes to terms with the cumbersome flashback structure, as Lara Cox's dinner guests try to explain to Canberra cop Graham Gall what they think they have just witnessed.

Detemined to end it all and take undeserving lover Ben Seton with her, Cox persuades best friend Jessica Turner to accompany her as she buys two lethal doses of heroine. However, she wants to go out with a bang and invites pals Kai Harris, Sam Lyndon, Mariane Power and Jerome Pride to the soirée that will enable her to lace Seton's drink with Rohipnol to facilitate her suicide scheme. But things don't go according to plan, as is made manifest by the identity of the survivors providing Gall with the interminably dull details of their supposedly complex lives.

Brett Murphy's skittish camera generates a sense of unease that atones for the general lack of suspense. But, with the notable exception of the eerily deranged Cox, the performances are as limited as Oonagh Sherrad's manipulative score. Similarly, Murden's intricate scenario is laudably ambitious, but he has too little to say about the spoilt brats who appear even more reprehensible than those assembled by Stacy Title in The Last Supper (1995). Yet, even though he muffs the surprise twist, Murden does enough to suggest he could produce something effective with a more rigorously edited script.

GURU IN SEVEN Shani Grewal's 1998 comedy was praised on its original release for its avoidance of politico-cultural controversy and racial caricature. Yet, even though it explored with some frankness the problems of being a twentysomething Punjabi in New Labour London, this remains an impenitently chauvinist romp whose laddish attitude is compounded by a lack of real substance.

When black girlfriend Ernestina Quarcoo jets off to Los Angeles in a huff because he refuses to discuss the subject of marriage, struggling painter Nitin Chandra Ganatra consoles himself with ex-girlfriend Lea Rochelle and a body-paint model. His drinking buddies are so impressed by his prowess, they convince him that he will earn the status of `guru' if he can seduce five more women by the end of the week. However, having added the notches of Irish colleen Elle Lewis, photographer Amanda Pointer and posh housewife Jacqueline Pearce to his bedpost, Ganatra becomes obsessed with another old flame, Suchitra Malik, whose workaholism recently prompted her divorce. The problem is, Malik's thuggish brother, Antony Zaki, disapproves of the relationship and Ganatra isn't wholly sure he's prepared to lose Quarcoo.

Poaching the speech to camera technique employed by Michael Caine in Lewis Gilbert's Alfie (1966) and ably pastiching masala musical tropes, this is a technically competent, but unbearably smug picture. Ganatra works hard at the easy-going geniality that is reinforced by James Bishop's nimble camerawork. But Malik is the only female character allowed any sort of personality and the indignities heaped up plump wannabe bride Dhirendra are deplorable. It's a marked improvement on Double X: The Name of the Game (1992), in which Grewal tried to reinvent Norman Wisdom as a legit actor. But that's not saying much and it's not entirely surprising he has not made another feature since.

LANDFALL Adapted from a novel by Nevil Shute, this 1949 war saga has a cosy familiarity about it. Yet, even though it eschews the kind of docudramatic realism that brought immediacy and power to so many British combat pictures between 1939-45, it also addresses the topics of friendly fire, war trauma and class with surprising frankness.

Michael Denison is a flight lieutenant with Coastal Command in the spring of 1940 when he prangs what he takes to be a German U-boat. However, he is hauled over the coals by naval captain Denis O'Dea for sinking an Allied vessel and not even wingman David Tomlinson's jaunty (albeit incredibly irksome) accordion ditties can cheer him up. Doing the noble thing, Denison applies for a transfer to a top secret testing facility and risks his life on several occasions, as he tries to forget. However, the girl he left behind, barmaid Patricia Plunkett, misses her dashing toff and her enquiries into the submarine sinking succeed in clearing Denison's name.

The ending might be a little pat, but Ken Annakin directs steadily and Denison and Plunkett make a sweet, if rather mismatched couple. Tomlinson delivers another of his silly ass turns, while Kathleen Harrison and Charles Victor prove reliable as ever as Plunkett's supportive parents, and AE Matthews revels in a quirky cameo as an ageing air raid warden. But, for all the cast's competence and Wilkie Cooper's evocative imagery, this remains a minor affair in comparison to the other `now it can be told' war tales being produced at the same time.

THE MARC PEASE EXPERIENCE Written and directed by Todd Louiso, this is an embarrassingly awful farrago whose release will forever remain a mystery. Eight years after fleeing the stage as the Tin Man in Ben Stiller's school production of The Wiz, Jason Schwartzman is a limo drive harbouring ludicrous dreams that he will find fame with his a cappella quartet. He now hopes Stiller will coach the group as it prepares to record its make-or-break demo. But Stiller makes a move, instead, on Schwartzman's young girlfriend, Anna Kendrick. Such inappropriate behaviour is off-putting. But it's nothing compared to what happens when Schwartzman sabotages and then rescues Stiller's reprise of The Wiz. Devoid of wit, taste and chemistry, this is truly, truly dreadful.

PARANOIAC Prompted by the success of Les Diaboliques (1955) and Psycho (1960), Hammer set scenarist Jimmy Sangster to produce a British copycat. Taste of Fear (1961) proved so successful that when the hugely expensive Phantom of the Opera (1962) flopped and the studio needed quick cash, Sangster rushed out Paranoiac, Maniac (both 1963) and Nightmare (1964). They very much stuck to the Gothic shock and slash formula. However, the first was based on Josephine Tey's novel, Brat Farrar, and, even though it radically altered its emphasis to sustain the suspense, it remains the pick of the triptych.

Struggling to cope at the anniversary of her parents' death approaches, Janette Scott becomes increasingly certain that the stranger who has been stalking her is the brother who supposedly died eight years earlier. Bibulous sibling Oliver Reed dismisses her fretting as nonsense and incurs the wrath of their aunt, Sheila Burrell, who suspects that Reed is plotting to have Scott committed to an asylum so he can inherit the family fortune for himself. Driven to distraction, Scott tumbles from a cliff into the sea. But she is rescued by Alexander Davion, who not only convinces her that he is her long-lost brother, but also lawyer Maurice Denham, after he subjects him to a rigorous interrogation. Reed, however, refuses to take the resurrection at face value - especially when it becomes clear that the feelings developing between Davion and Scott are far from fraternal.

Using Arthur Grant's mobile CinemaScope camera to trap the characters in Bernard Robinson's oppressive sets, Freddie Francis's third feature is a splendidly unsettling thriller that frequently recalls Cyril Frankel's The Very Edge (1963), which placed Anne Heywood at the mercy of Richard Todd and Jeremy Brett (well worth a DVD release if anyone's taking notes). Egged on by Elisabeth Lutyens's emotive score, Reed seethes with a rage that outstrips anything managed by the angry young men in the contemporaneous kitchen sink dramas, while Scott tempers her fragility with a sensual recklessness that tempts her into what she knows to be an incestuous kiss. But what most impresses is Francis's control, which suggests he had been paying keen attention while photographing The Innocents, Jack Clayton's 1961 take on the Henry James novella, The Turn of the Screw.

RESURRECTING THE STREET WALKER The snuff movie has become one of horror's most hackneyed plotlines, but Ozgur Uyanik succeeds in finding a new angle in this accomplished debut. Echoes of so many films reverberate through the slickly assembled action, with Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), Anthony Waller's Mute Witness (1994), Julian Richards's The Last Horror Movie (2003) and Dave Parker's The Hills Run Red (2009) among the more obvious ones. But Uyanik's bravura mix of film formats, as well as faux archive and audio material, gives this mockumentary an originality that is bound to attract a cult audience.

Desperate to impress as a runner at a Soho production company, James Powell is even willing to put up with the insults and unreasonable demands of boss Lorna Beckett. However, he finds a focus for his talents when he discovers the unseen reels of an unfinished picture entitled The Street Walker, in which a serial killer poses as a film-maker to lure unsuspecting victims to their deaths. Despite suspecting that the director was insisting on pitiless realism, Powell vows to finish the feature and begins keeping a video diary. However, buddy Tom Shaw becomes increasingly concerned about Powell's obsession and commences his own project, which is clearly being completed after something truly shocking has occurred.

With Paul Englefield making adept use of the different visual textures and Uyanik cutting in other sources with considerable facility, this has a genuine actuality feel. Perhaps some of the supporting performances are a little shaky, but the acerbic Beckett passes muster, as does Gregory Duke, as the editor who thought he'd seen it all. Powell occasionally stumbles, mostly in the scenes involving his disapproving bourgeois father. But this is supposed to be a wannabe's first stab at film-making (as it were), so the odd bit of over-acting is more than excusable.

SHANK South London, 2015 and Ashley `Bashy' Thomas is the leader of the Paper Chaserz, who scavenge and wheeler deal in order to survive. Yet while all around are resorting to petty crime, this gang is not only moral, but also pacifist. So, when Thomas is killed in a street fight by rival Jerome Holder, his younger brother Kedar Williams-Stirling has to decide whether to avenge his sibling or uphold his principles. Fellow gang members Jan Uddin, Mchael Socha and Adam Deacon are keen to hunt Holder down and support is forthcoming from the Slaughter Gurlz: Kaya Scodelario, Jennie Jacques and Rheanne Murray.

Even though the anti-knife crime message is compromised by the vigilante nature of the storyline, this might have made for an engaging insight into urban attitudes in a broken society. But director Mo Ali seems to lose interest in the circuitous search for Holder and indulges himself instead in an onslaught of brash set-pieces and flashy visuals that seem designed more to get him noticed than advance the plot or develop the characters. Nevertheless, cinematographer Adam Frisch, editor Julian Tranquille and production designer Rob Nicholls deserve enormous credit for capturing the edgy energy of estates that thrum with despair, fury and latent aggression. There's a laudable rawness about the performances, too, although the standard of the acting is ruinously inconsistent. Perhaps with a less derivative script, a sharper sense of pacing and a lot more audiovisual discipline, the undoubtedly promising Ali may do better next time.

SHRINK Screenwriter Thomas Moffett is clearly a fan of movies like The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993), Hurlyburly (1998), Magnolia (1999) and Crash (2004), as traces of them all are readily evident in this tired insider exposé of Hollywood foible. When he's not getting high, shrink Kevin Spacey is attempting to sort out the lives of sex addicted star Robin Williams, blocked writer Mark Webber, trophy wife Saffron Burrows, alcoholic actor Jack Huston and compulsive agent Dallas Roberts and his pregnant assistant, Pell James. Yet, it's Spacey who is most in need of help and father Robert Loggia stages an intervention to compel him to confront the problems he seeks to hide in clouds of marijuana smoke.

The performances are assured, with Keke Palmer particularly impressing as a student coping with the recent loss of her mother by hiding away in revival cinemas. But while Jonas Pate's direction is eminently sympathetic, Moffett's script is too aware of its compassion, wit and insight. Consequently, neither Spacey nor his clients invite more than passing interest, while the satirical snipes at Tinseltown venality lack venom. The polished superficiality is epitomised by Gore Vidal's cameo and the glib solutions that Moffett finds to the overly familiar storylines, which he strives to interweave with a sincerity and profundity that are largely conspicuous by their absence.

THE SILENT INVASION Brian Clemens had just started scripting The Avengers when he wrote this 1962 war drama. Made on a shoestring and set in the French village of Mereux, it often feels like a teleplay and it's no surprise that director Max Varnel wound up making episodes of Skippy and Neighbours in Australia. Yet, for all its shortcomings, this is a thoughtful insight into the relationships that developed between Vichy's victors and the vanquished.

Shortly after Eric Flynn sets up headquarters in the quiet backwater in the summer of 1940, Francis De Wolff organises his neighbours into a resistance movement. However, André Maranne and teenager Melvyn Hayes are captured during the first mission and SS martinet Martin Benson arrives to interrogate them after Flynn proves feebly humane. The pair are eventually shot in the square, with the locals looking on. Petra Davies vows vengeance on her younger brother's killer and agrees to seduce Flynn to glean information about transport trains and troop movements. But she begins to fall for the captain, who is a civilised man caught up in a conflict he despises. So, when De Wolff orders her to assassinate him, Davies has to decide where her loyalties actually lie.

Closer to Secret Army than `Allo, `Allo - but never approaching the sinister complexity of Occupation masterpieces like Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau (1943) or Louis Malle's Lacombe, Lucien (1974) - this always struggles to overcome its budgetary constraints. The sets are flimsily artificial, while the supporting performances are more than a little stilted. But Davies and Flynn capably suggest the dilemma facing enemies in love, while Martin Benson is brusquely callous as the Gestapo bully prepared to take on the Wehrmacht as well as the Maquis.

THE WAR LORD The widescreen epic was already a box-office anachronism by the time Franklin J. Schaffner adapted Leslie Stevens's play, The Lovers, in 1965. Yet, while the failure of Cleopatra (1963) had almost bankrupted 20th Century-Fox, Charlton Heston kept the historical blockbuster going almost single-handedly with hits like The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959) and El Cid (1961) and such fascinating misfires as 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) and Khartoum (1966). Set in 11th-century France, The War Lord belongs firmly in the latter category. But let's hope its release will prompt somebody to issue Anthony Mann's El Cid and Nicholas Ray's 55 Days at Peking on disc soon.

Heston plays Chrysagon de la Crue, an impoverished lord whose feudal duties to the Duke of Ghent include keeping the pillaging Frisians away from the druidic extremes of his domain. During one raid, Chrysagon misses the opportunity to capture the Norse chief (Henry Wilcoxson) who ruined his father by taking him hostage. However, he unintentionally captures the warrior's young son and he becomes something of a mascot to trusted lieutenant Bors (Richard Boone) and his cohorts.

Meanwhile, Chrysagon also faces domestic problems, as Draco (Guy Stockwell) resents his older brother and delights in plotting against him. Thus, when Chrysagon becomes obsessed with comely vassal Bronwyn (Rosemary Forsyth) after a chance meeting while hunting, Draco suggests that he invokes the law of Prima Noctis that entitles him to deflower a maiden on her wedding night. However, Bronwyn has no intention of returning to share poverty with her groom and Chrysagon soon finds himself confronted with revolting serfs and rapacious invaders.

Boasting authentic period designs by Henry Bumstead and Alexander Golitzen, glorious Russell Metty photography and a rousing score by Jerome Morross, this makes for intriguing comparison with Ridley Scott's recent remake of Robin Hood. The discussion of droit de seigneur and the contrasts between paganism and Christianity have a laudable depth that modern Hollywood would never dream of attempting. The crisis of masculinity that Heston endures is similarly intriguing. Admittedly, there's a pomposity about the language and Schaffner's direction outside the action sequences is occasionally stolid. But Heston, Stockwell and Boone contribute earnest performances and they are well supported by Maurice Evans, as the priest determined to convert the villagers with kindness, and Niall MacGinniss, as a tribal elder proud of his heritage, but aware of his reliance on the baronial interlopers to defend his people.