DVD OF THE WEEK

KICK-ASS *****
Dir: Matthew Vaughan, Starring: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nicolas Cage

Kick-Ass didn't do so well at cinemas: the combination of kid superheroes and an R18 certificate understandably confused viewers. But it will rent like crazy on DVD.
Directed by Matthew Vaughan (Guy Ritchie's producing partner) from the comic book of the same name, Kick-Ass is a deliriously funny and joyfully politically incorrect adventure which manages to be both a geeky coming of age tale and an hilariously violent superhero parody.
The set-up sounds innocuous enough. Mild mannered high school comic book fan Dave Lizewski (Johnson) decides that it is a good idea to make a costume and fight crime, despite lacking any particular skills or training. We know it is a bad idea and, sure enough, Dave gets severely beaten. But this attracts the attention of the film's ace in the hole – pint size Hit Girl and her Batman-like father (a fine and funny turn from crazy Nic Cage). They really are superheroes. Soon the villain's son (Mintz-Plasse) is getting in on the act, recreating himself as his own costumed hero, Red Mist. Chaos ensues.
I'm happy to say that Kick-Ass is fantastic, roll on the floor laughing stuff, and surprisingly inoffensive, though you may want to heed the MPAA warning which ran: 'Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use – some involving children.” I think it's mainly the children thing they were worried about, but don't let that put you off or you'll miss out on a whole bunch of fun.

The Road (****) takes place in a post-apocalyptic future still plagued by earthquakes and fires, where everything is a grey wasteland. The world is as bleak and inhospitable as one can imagine. A man (Viggio Mortensen) and his son trudge the abandoned highways trying to avoid scattered groups of killers and cannibals and reach the coast. As visions of future dystopias go this is unrelentingly grim and powerful stuff - despite losing a certain amount of its impact on the small screen - though there are moments of optimism. Classy cameos include Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron with impressive direction from John (The Proposition) Hillcoat.

Though the cover would lead you to believe it is a horror comedy, Baghead (***) is neither. Instead it is a small-scale drama that fits loosely into the American mumblecore movement, though has more going on than many in that genre. Four friends, aspiring actors, take a weekend in the country where they plan to write a script to make themselves famous. They decide on a horror film (yes, about a psycho with a bag on his head) and are menaced by someone outside their cabin (yes, with a bag on his head), but mostly the film is a relationship piece with a lot of talk about feelings and the like.

The tag line for Eichmann (****) is 'Father. Soldier. Monster!”. It's a rather sensationalist slogan for a film that is anything but. Rather than lurid Nazi thrills this offers a fascinating look at Eichmann's interrogation in Israel after being kidnapped from Argentina, and the pressures put on his mild-mannered interrogator by various political factions and the out-of-control vengeful crowds of protestors. And even if nothing is eventually resolved, it offers many pertinent questions about the nature of evil and the fine line between justice and revenge.

The tag line for RoboGeisha (***) is 'Geisha is beautiful. Geisha is wild. Geisha is robot!”. And (like Eichmann) it's all true. This is a film in search of an Incredibly Strange Film Festival to show it. It's cheap, it's silly, it's completely insane. But if you fancy breast-implanted machine guns or the astonishing 'butt-sword”, watch and
be amazed.