Parky at the Pictures (DVD 29/12/2011) (From The Oxford Times)

Parky at the Pictures (DVD 29/12/2011)

8:10am Thursday 29th December 2011

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Ordinarily, at least one DVD lands in the Parky at the Pictures postbag each day and, as some don't fit neatly into the weekly themed columns, they tend to end up in the `get round to them eventually' pile in the corner. Thus, in the spirit of the clearance sales that are currently keeping what's left of the economy afloat, these neglected titles have been dusted off for a bumper edition that will, hopefully, provide a few ideas for your New Year viewing.

THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR India, 1850 and half-caste Ronald Lewis is proud to be a lieutenant in the Bengal Lancers. However, when Captain Jeremy Burnham is captured by Oliver Reed's Gilzhai rebels while on a reconnaissance mission, Lewis is accused of abandoning his comrade to his fate and dishonourably discharged and jailed on the orders of bigoted colonel, Duncan Lamont. Appalled that Burnham's wife (Katherine Woodville) thinks he betrayed her husband to pursue his own love suit, Lewis escapes and heads into the dunes to clear his name. He seeks sanctuary with Reed, only to discover that Burnham had been savagely tortured and it's only when he avenges the crime and joins forces with Reed's sister, Yvonne Romain, to lead the Gilzhai in a heroic charge against the British forces that Woodville and journalist Glyn Houston realise the extent of his courage.

For all its obvious borrowings from Rudyard Kipling, John Gilling's 1965 imperialist adventure also has a good deal in common with Carry On Up the Khyber (1968). Indeed, Gerald Thomas's Snowdonia-shot epic is probably more authentic than this `all expenses spared' Hammer offering. Oliver Reed snarls effectively as the wicked khan, while Duncan Lamont does a nice line in upper-class racist snobbery. But, while Ronald Lewis's travails occasionally recall those of John Clements in Zoltan Korda's The Four Feathers (1939), this has none of the cinematic sincerity or historical sweep of near-contemporary homages to redcoat courage like Cy Endfield's Zulu (1964).

COME ON EILEEN Jackie Howe has managed to turn her life around since husband Keith Allen left her to raise their kids, Mercedes Grower and Felix Malcolm-Still. She even finds time to care for ailing father Freddie Jones with her sniffy sister, Melanie Hudson. However, an injudicious glass of champagne with pot-smoking cricketer Stephen Taylor at the pavilion where she works tips Howe back into the alcoholism she had struggled so hard to conquer and she is soon alienating friends and family alike.

The action ends with an inevitable reunion at a rock festival, after Howe tracks the runaway Still to the event where wannabe burlesque dancer Grower's musician boyfriend Noel Fielding is playing. But, despite the best efforts of a willing cast (that includes Julia Davis as Howe's best pal), this never quite works as a drama of domestic dysfunction or a wry study of self-pitying addiction. Director Finola Geraghty has been acclaimed for some of her short films, but the story here feels stretched and the characters contrivedly eccentric. Moreover, Howe lacks both the presence and nuance to carry off a tricky role for which the darkly, drily droll Davis would have been much better suited.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN Having proved himself as a boy (Leo Howard) to be a worthy Cimmerian warrior, Conan (Jason Momoa) witnesses the murder of his father Corin (Ron Perlman) by Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) and vows vengeance upon him as his enchantress daughter, Marique (Rose McGowan). However, Conan's purpose is deflected by the need to protect virgin princess Tamara (Rachel Nichols) and prevent Zym from realising his ambition to possess a mythical crown that is said to grant the wearer unprecedented power, as it was made from the skull fragments of past Hyborian kings.

Marcus Nispel is becoming a serial reviver of moribund franchises. With The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Friday the 13th (2009) already to his credit, he makes a respectable job of bringing Robert E. Howard's barbaric behemoth into the 21st Century. Hawaiian hunk Jason Momoa also fills the Austrian Oak's shoes with bicep-bulging aplomb. But, while McGowan's shape-shifting sand minions catch the eye, the bulk of the computer-generated work is undistinguished, with the fantastical scenery lacking imagination and the battle between Conan and sidekick Ela-Shan (Saïd Taghmaoui) and the giant water snake being so clumsily flash cut that it's almost impossible to work out what is going on. Sequels seem inevitable, but this is unlikely to do for Momoa what the original did for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

DEVIL'S GATE Nurse Laura Fraser leaves Edinburgh for her Shetland home on hearing that crofter father Tom Bell is dying. However, he has merely been incapacitated by an unfortunate incident with a sheep and a furious Fraser scowls her way around the island fretting over the whereabouts of her mother and dealing with memories of the miserable childhood that she had just about suppressed. Old flame Callum Blue, copper Patrick Gordon and tourist Luke Aikman (who has arrived to witness an ancient fire festival) all have designs (of various kinds) on Fraser. But she is protected by the mysterious Roger Ashton-Griffiths, who prowls silently around the remote settlement and always seems to appear whenever Fraser needs a guardian angel.

Director Stuart St Paul and co-scenarist Trevor Todd were clearly as influenced by Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man as Mark Harriott and Mike Matthews were inspired by this 2003 chiller when concocting their own island saga, Unhappy Birthday, some seven years later. Cinematographer Malcolm McLean makes atmospheric use of the bleak landscape and spartan interiors, while St Paul generates a troubling intensity in leaking clues as to the fate of Fraser's mother. But the performances are wildly inconsistent, with Fraser mostly stomping around like a spoilt child, Bell stopping just short of pantomime villainy and Blue delivering delusional pronouncements in the least Hebridean accent imaginable. Thus, this is intriguing, but flawed.

EROTIBOT Life is already good for Mahiro Aine. She lives with her three devoted androids and has just inherited her grandfather's entire fortune. However, wicked stepsister Maria Ozawa learns about the bequest and plots with her devilish sidekick Asami to re-programme the `droids so they slowly poison Aine without anyone becoming suspicious. But, while the parental Number One and Number Two prove vulnerable, Number Three (aka Sukekiyo) is so besotted with his mistress that he resists any tinkering - at least any not provided by Aine herself.

Cult movie aficionados will already know Nishimura Tomomatsu from such post-Troma kitsch flicks as Zombie Self-Defence Force (2006) and Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009). But this feeble excuse for some chaste nudity and a sudden onslaught of pitiless violence isn't in the same league. Closer in spirit to Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973) than Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running (1972), the action is obviously intended to be tongue in cheek. But Tomomatsu is less interested in generic parody or even slapstick farce than in presenting adult video stars Aine and Ozawa in various states of dishabille to tease what is surely likely to be a largely adolescent audience with a bit of robotic rumpy pumpy before satiating their bloodlustful cravings with some climactic carnage. All in all, crassly cartoonish and shoddily slapdash for a director capable of infinitely superior trash.

LAST NIGHT Journalist Keira Knightley is convinced something is going on between husband Sam Worthington and real estate brokerage colleague Eva Mendes when she sees them flirting at a chic Manhattan soirée. So, when he heads off to Philadelphia on business with Mendes, Knightley decides that the previous night's betrayal and subsequent bickering entitles her to a fling of her own when she bumps into old Parisian flame Guillaume Canet. However, while they are double dating with his friends Griffin Dunne and Stephanie Romanov, Worthington and Mendes are slipping away from their workmates for a little alone time.

Back in Hollywood's golden age, this sort of marital merry-go-round might easily, in the hands of a Mitchell Leisen, have made glossy screwball entertainment for Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche as the marrieds and Charles Boyer and Linda Darnell as the temptations. However, despite screenwriting credits for Leo (2002) and The Jacket (2005), debuting Iranian-American director Missy Tadjedin lacks the finesse to exploit the rather contrived situations. Consequently, while this is smoothly played and impeccably staged, it lacks both the teasing eroticism necessary to make the action deliciously illicit and the sophisticated wit that a contemporary French director like Emmanuel Mouret might have brought to the proceedings.

THE LEGEND OF BRUCE LEE Bruce Lee (Kwok-Kwan Chan) is injured in a fight with Wong Jack Man (Li Yuan), the childhood rival who has pursued him across the planet to take his tilt at an icon. As he lies there, Lee thinks back to his training at the hands of Yip Man (Yu Chenghui) that transformed him from a street punk into a martial artist and how he came to understand the philosophy and the techniques of a master he had initially questioned. He also recalls the racial prejudice he encountered as he fought opponents from different martial styles and vanquished them all. But his greatest triumph was yet to come, as shortly after meeting future wife Linda Emery (Michelle Lang), Lee embarked upon the brief movie career that would ensure his global celebrity after the success of Robert Crouse's 1973 kung fu classic, Enter the Dragon.

Co-produced by Lee's daughter Shannon and edited down from a mammoth 50-part Chinese series, this may be more ambitious than Rob Cohen's 1993 biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, but it's no more authentic. Kwok-Kwan Chan (aka Danny Chan) certainly bears a plausible resemblance to Lee and the athletic expertise that was evident in the Stephen Chow comedies Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004) enables him to handle the Jeet Kune Do choreography with ease. But Lee is scarcely portrayed in a heroic light during his sojourn with Yip Man and questions of accuracy have to be raised about his karate championship record. However, it's the poor quality of the dubbing and the translation of the dialogue that makes this so resistible, in spite of the guest appearances by such chop-socky titans as Tim Storms (as jujitsu master Willy Jay), Ted E. Duran (as British boxer Blair), Ray Park (as the Chuck Norris-inspired Rolex), Mark Dacascos (as the Thai boxer on the set of The Big Boss) and Michael Jai White, as an American pugilist obsessed with Lee's physical prowess and psychological control.

LOVELY BY SURPRISE Carrie Preston has writer's block. Her protagonists are underpants-wearing brothers Dallas Roberts and Michael Chernus, but they do little other than sit in a boat in a field playing with the toys they find in cereal boxes. She visits her former creative writing tutor (and lover) Austin Pendleton for advice and he suggests killing off one of the siblings to create a conflict. However, Chernus gets wind of Roberts's plot and flees into the real world, where he befriends despondent car salesman Reg Rogers, whose daughter Lena Lamer hasn't spoken a word since the death of her mother. As fact and fiction become increasingly intertwined, the resulting encounters and exchanges have a profound impact on the corporeal and the created alike.

Bearing passing similarities to Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation (2002) and Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction (2006), Kirt Gunn's quirky meta-comedy offers some thoughtful insights into the writing process and an author's relationship with their characters. Yet, despite the best efforts of a capable cast, the central conceit doesn't quite gel, while the need to keep the action as cogent and accessible as possible means that the weighty literary and philosophical issues raised are mostly considered in a superficial manner.

MARGIN CALL One dark night in 2008, Wall Street financier Stanley Tucci realises that his investment firm is sitting on a powderkeg of sub-prime mortgages and just breaks the news to young bucks Zachary Quinto and Penn Badgley before he falls victim to a rapid-fire downsizing exercise. With the reality of the situation creeping up the chain of command, tensions mount as callow rookies, cynical brokers and out-of-their-depth executives attempt to forge a strategy that will enable them to sell the toxic stock before the markets suss the truth. But can middle manager Paul Bettany, top trader Kevin Spacey, risk officer Demi Moore and CEO Jeremy Irons afford to take the concerns of their customers into consideration if they are to salvage the company?

Echoes of Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987) and James Foley's Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) reverberate around this bristling boardroom saga. But, while debuting writer-director JC Chandor offers a shrewd assessment of fiscal sector priorities and its callous attitude towards those affected by its recklessness, he doesn't quite have the ear for dialogue to match an undoubted knack for sharp characterisation and slick plotting. Consequently, too many speeches (especially in the climactic sequences) sound like chunks of a business-speak textbook and not even a cracking cast on crackling form can avoid sounding declamatory. Nonetheless, this dissection of capitalist corruption, complacency and incompetence looks superb (thanks to Frank G. DeMarco's chilly digital imagery) and catches the cheerless recessional mood every bit as persuasively as Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009) and John Wells's The Company Men (2010).

THE POET Russian hitman Dougray Scott is spotted botching a Viennese assassination and promptly dispatches the snoop. Unfortunately, Andrew Lee Potts was a budding artist and Scott is irresistibly drawn to the opening of his posthumous death-themed exhibition and promptly falls for his victim's soulful sister, Laura Harring. She had no idea that Scott offed her brother, but detective Jürgen Prochnow has his suspicions and closes in on a killer whose growing passion proves a fatal distraction.

It took Paul Hills eight years to follow sophomore outing Boston Kickout with this 2003 romantic thriller and it's all too easy to see why it took another eight for it finally to secure a DVD release. Risibly stuffed with pretentiously poetic utterances and boasting a cross-cut murder-masturbation sequence that has to be seen to be disbelieved, this is resoundingly mediocre throughout. Roger Bonnici's views of the Austrian capital are evocative, but there is no chemistry whatsoever between Scott and Harring (whose softcore couplings are wholly gratuitous), while Prochnow's pursuit is entirely devoid of suspense. Poorly scripted and paced and replete with clumsy symbolism and portentous performances, this is clearly seeks to be as significant as Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967), but is unintentionally more hilarious than the Comic Strip's Mr Jolly Lives Next Door (1987).

THE SCARLET BLADE At the height of the English Civil War, June Thorburn ignores colonel father Lionel Jeffries's support for Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads and throws in her lot with Royalist rebel Jack Hedley, who plans to liberate King Charles from captivity. But, while Hedley can rely upon knife-throwing sidekick Michael Ripper, Jeffries is less certain of the loyalty of Oliver Reed, a dashing, but ruthless captain in the New Model Army who is prepared to serve whichever side best suits his ambitions.

Although it remains best known for horror films, Hammer occasionally branched out into other genres and director John Gilling makes a decent fist of this 1963 swashbuckling adventure. It lacks the panache of the Hollywood outings of Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power, but the period feel is creditably authentic. Moreover, if it misses the menace of Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General (1968), it still boasts a splendid display of sneering villainy from Oliver Reed, whose self-serving vacillations more than atone for the sobersided heroics of Jack Hedley, the scenery gnawing of Lionel Jeffries and the hockey-sticky pluck of June Thorburn, who would die so tragically four years later in an air crash.

WEEKENDER Fed up with small pickings as petty thieves, 1990s Mancunian wide boys Jack O'Connell and Henry Lloyd-Hughes realise they could make their fortune by hosting illegal raves. Having found themselves a star DJ in pirate radio personality Tom Meeten, the pair set about locating a venue and a supply of chemicals to ensure the big night goes with a bang. Following a trip to Ibiza to learn a few tricks of the trade from Cockney chancer Stephen Wright, the boys score an overnight success, only for it to pitch O'Connell into a substance-fuelled lost weekend (much to the distress of girlfriend Emily Barclay) and attract the attention of Salford thug Ben Batt.

Persuading audiences to enjoy wild party antics as much as the actors simulating them has long tested the ingenuity of film directors and the best one can say for Dubliner Karl Golden is that he does no worse than Justin Kerrigan's efforts in the surprisingly admired 1999 drama Human Traffic. Hailing from Skins and The Inbetweeners respectively, O'Connell and Lloyd-Hughes just about hold things together and it's interesting to see Dreams of a Life star Zawe Ashton in an early role. But the sheer surfeit of clichés and stereotypes and the absence of any particularly sympathetic characters makes this humdrum house saga eminently resistible even for those convinced that the incessant thudding on the soundtrack is actually music rather than mere noise.