DVD OF THE WEEK

FEMALE AGENTS ****
Dir: Jean-Paul Salome
Starring: Sophie Marceau, Gerard Depardieu, Marie Gillain

This week by complete coincidence we have two World War Two-set action thrillers, the one with Tom Cruise (see below) and this one, a French film about – as the title would suggest – a plucky group of five French female spies sent back to France from England to protect plans for the D-Day invasion from a particularly pesky Nazi fellow.
And if all that sounds very 'Allo Allo”, then I vill say zis only once – this is a really good film. What Female Agents does so well is straddle the rival genres of WW2 caper flick - strongly suggested by the 'assembling of the team” section at the beginning of the movie, where each woman's role and 'speciality” is delineated – and serious resistance fighter film, with vivid sequences of torture and a real sense of threat and dread as the agents plunge yet further into occupied France to try and complete their mission.
Sophie Marceau throws off the curse of Bond girls to really impress in the lead role while the Germans are never caricatured and remain serious three-dimensional adversaries. There are strong supporting roles and the unfamiliarity with most of the cast adds to the suspense by making it harder to predict in advance which characters will meet unpleasant fates along the way.
The most obvious recent comparison is with Dutch resistance film Black Book, which was a much more 'Boy's Own” take on the genre. Here, despite having a team of beautiful women on a mission, the tone is more real, though, like Black Book, this is beautifully shot and the period is painstakingly recreated. It'll be interesting to see how Quentin Tarantino's new WW2 mission flick Inglorious Basterds compares.

And then there's Tom Cruise as a Nazi in Valkyrie (***) … But of course he's not a Nazi. He's a conveniently 'good” German, a principled military hero who just can't stand what Mr Hitler is doing. Hence the plot to blow him up. This is, of course, based on a true story, Cruise does bear a striking resemblance to his historical counterpart, there is a killer cast of the Best of Britain and – no doubt – massive attention has been paid to period authenticity.

Bryan Singer is a great director and manages to bring an impressive degree of narrative thrust and suspense to the story but after films like Downfall and The Counterfeiters, it just feels a little silly to see Tom Cruise running round in a German uniform.
Revolutionary Road (***) is a big serious film. You can tell that because it's so depressing. This is Kate and Leo as probably no one really wanted to see them, as a bickering married couple trapped in fifties suburbia. Both actors are fine, of course, though Leo seems a bit uncertain as to what to do with his hands. They start off arguing and excepting a brief interlude where they plan to move to Paris ( a pipedream which soon collapses) it's all downhill from there. Production values are naturally immaculate, but this is bleak tiring stuff.

Red Sands (**) is directed by Alex Turner, the man behind atmospheric Civil War-set horror outing Dead Birds. He's changed wars, this time following a small platoon of GIs in Iraq tasked with guarding a deserted outpost. They come across an antique statue and with typical gung-ho foolishness shoot it up. Turns out said statue is – surprise! – possessed by an 'ancient demon” which soon extracts revenge on the increasingly paranoid GIs. While the build-up and suspense are nicely handled the climactic demon-revealing CGI work leaves much to be desired.

Disaster Movie (*) is hardly a movie. But it is a disaster. The title (from the people who brought you Epic Movie and Date Movie) has little to do with the lame film parodies – if one can even call them parodies – which this time include Twister, Juno, Iron Man, Batman, The Hulk, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Hancock.
B-listers more usually seen on ETV and women's magazines feature intermittently, but the laughs are nowhere to be seen. Avoid this money-grab as you would spurn a rabid dog.