DVD OF THE WEEK

VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA ***
Dir: Woody Allen
Starring: Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall

It would be easy to see this film as further proof of the decline of Woody Allen's talents if only it weren't so damned likeable.
Let me say first up that I'm a big Woody Allen fan who has been becoming increasingly despondent with his sub-par recent offerings. I consider his last film, Cassandra's Dream, the worst thing he has ever done and the previous two UK-set outings as not much better. But this is different. It's actually fun.
A lot of the kudos must go to the acting ensemble, wherein even the usually vacuous Scarlett Johansson is given no more to do than she can handle and holds up fine. The others are simply perfect, not necessarily believable, but charming and eminently watchable.
Bardem is a sexy Spanish artist, almost a caricature of the sort of romantic figure that Johansson's Christina wants to find. Her friend Vicky is more conservative, engaged to be married when she returns to America after the two friends' holiday in Spain. They meet the artist and he invites them for a romantic weekend. Against Vicky's protestations they accept, but it is the straight-laced Vicky who ends up sleeping with their host.
All this would be worth nothing were it not for the arrival of Penelope Cruz as the artist's unstable ex-wife. She is superb and a force of nature and the film is quickly pushed into high gear.
What is disappointing is the lack of any memorable dialogue and a voiceover which, while giving an uplifting feel to proceedings, states nothing but the bleeding obvious. On the other hand, the scenery and music are lovely, and the leads are consummate professionals giving the film a bewitching appeal that easily compensates for other weaknesses.

A family of NYPD cops are the focus in Pride and Glory (***), caught at the centre of the aftermath a shootout that leaves three police dead. Ed Norton finds himself heading the investigation, Noah Emmerich is his brother, commander of the slain officers, and Colin Farrell is their brother-in-law, one of the squad whose members have been killed. Jon Voight is the father (also a cop). Things, unsurprisingly, are not as simple as they appear and each man searches their conscience for how far their loyalty to family and police can be stretched as the true level of corruption is slowly revealed. Perhaps not as complex as it needs to be, but involving nonetheless.

Set in mid-nineties slackerland, The Wackness (***) follows young dope dealer Luke (Josh Peck) for the few months before university, primarily the relationship with his unorthodox shrink. Ben Kingsley is wonderfully droll as the analyst, dolling out unreliable wisdom and charging for the sessions in bags of weed. His marriage is crumbling, just as Luke falls for his step-daughter. It's a Generation X coming-of-age drama, filled with quirky deadpan humour and wrapped up with a cool era-specific rap soundtrack, the title coming from a character who says 'I see the dopeness of life – you just see the wackness”.

In House (**) a pair of self-involved young couples wind up at a spooky old mansion after mysterious car problems in America's isolated southern backwoods. Cue a crazy creepy family, supernatural apparitions a gogo and a maniac called 'Tin Man” who demands a 'body by morning”. Luridly shot in oversaturated colours, the film may be completely bonkers but it's hard not to be impressed by the verve with which it gleefully hurls wild hallucinogenic scares at its protagonists. Leaping from one over-the-top set-piece of to another, right up to the absolutely daft ending, this is good for all the wrong reasons.

Religious crazies run riot in End of the Line (**), which comes on like a zombie flick but uses a death cult as substitute for flesh-eaters. The film centres on a small group of underground train passengers who find themselves trapped after the crazies decide the end of the world has arrived. And there do seem to be a helluva lot of them, every second person turning out to be a whack-job ready to kill for their (disappointingly unexplored) faith. Dubious low-budget stuff, but it does have its moments.