Video Find the Perfect Gift    Send a Gift Certificate
Search 
Home › Drama
Review 2 Entertain Video / The Forsyte Saga
Actors & Directors
  • Damian Lewis
  • Gina McKee
  • Christopher Menaul
  • John Carlisle
  • Rupert Graves
  • Barbara Flynn
  • David Moore
Release date: 2002-05-13
Run time: 450 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £9.39

Review The Forsyte Saga / 2 Entertain Video:

Granada Television's adaptation of The Forsyte Saga achieved the seemingly impossible in Spring 2002, matching the BBC's 35-year-old black-and-white classic version with a richly cast and superbly directed take on John Galsworthy's first two novels. The success of these six 90-minute episodes proved that despite the current emphasis on mini-series and dramas developed around the "hot" actor of the moment, our appetite-and attention span-still craves ensemble pieces which are given the space and time to develop in today's focus-group-led scheduling. It also demonstrates that nothing generates television gold like a compelling family drama crammed with lust, rape, class conflict and the insuperable power of money. The Forsyte Saga is nothing if not superior soap opera. It could all have gone horribly wrong, haunted by the spectre of its BBC predecessor-a television legend for anyone over 40. Instead, it succeeds entirely on its own merits with scarcely a weak link; from Stephen Mallatratt's taut and fluid script to David Moore's carefully measured, seamess direction. Risks were taken to banish the old ghosts, particularly in the casting. In the event, Damian Lewis' repressed Soames and Gina McKee as his ill-matched bride, the enigmatic Irene, are inspired choices delivering complex portraits of unhappy, damaged human beings who deserve our sympathy. In a sea of marvellous cameos and splendid acting, the top honours go to Corin Redgrave and Rupert Graves for their hauntingly sensitive interpretations of Old and Young Jolyon, as well as to Amanda Root's increasingly exasperated Winifred; and Gillian Kearney's sharply intelligent and worldly June. All rounded characters without a weakly written cipher in sight. [+]
-Piers Ford.

Review Cinema Club / Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook / Murder In The Mews [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • Edward Bennett
  • David Suchet
  • Hugh Fraser
Release date: 2002-07-08
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.71

Review Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook / Murder In The Mews [1989] / Cinema Club:


Review Film Four / The Debt Collector [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Iain Robertson
  • Annette Crosbie
  • Francesca Annis
  • Ken Stott
  • Anthony Neilson
  • Billy Connolly
Release date: 2000-05-01
Price: £5.99

Review The Debt Collector [1999] / Film Four:

Billy Connolly has made the transition from comedy to straight dramatic roles with a great deal more success than most. In The Debt Collector he plays Nicky Dryden, a violent debt collector who has served 18 grim years in prison, only to have found rehabilitation on the outside as a successful sculptor and respectability in marriage to Francesca Annis. However, Keltie (Ken Stott) the policeman who originally arrested him is disgusted at this ex-con's social elevation and undertakes an obsessive campaign of stalking and harassment, refusing to allow him to bury his past. It is Keltie, in a sense, who is the true debt collector of the title-he doesn't believe Dryden either has or ever can repay society. Furthermore, Dryden is idolised by a young thug (Iain Robertson) who bases his psychotic lifestyle on Dryden's past exploits. Stott and Connolly make excellent, craggy adversaries, with the frustrated, embittered ex-cop cutting a menacing, though at times pathetic character, while Connolly's Dryden knows that his past, violent side is capable of erupting at any time. This gloomily compelling drama has moments of sickeningly concussive impact as it winds its way down to its tragic conclusion. Annette Crosbie as Keltie's vulnerable yet curiously strong Mother, turns in a fine supporting performance. -David Stubbs.

Review Arrow Films / La Bonne Annee [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Lino Ventura
  • Francoise Fabian
  • Claude LeLouch
  • Charles Gerard
Release date: 1995-03-06
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £12.50

Review La Bonne Annee [1973] / Arrow Films:


Review 2 Entertain Video / The Onedin Line - Part 3 [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • James Hayter
  • Warren Clarke
  • Geraint Morris
  • Pamela Salem
  • Peter Graham Scott
  • Timothy Slender
  • William Slater
  • Stephen Butcher
  • David Sullivan Proudfoot
  • Marc Harrison
Release date: 1993-10-04
Run time: 139 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.99

Review The Onedin Line - Part 3 [1971] / 2 Entertain Video:

Ah, the sea, the sea. White-sailed ships manned by stout-hearted sailors, oaken prows cleaving the Atlantic swell. Such is the appeal of The Onedin Line, which enjoyed a 10-year run on the BBC, from 1970 to 1980, providing an escape from that troubled decade into a world where Britannia still ruled the waves and a man could achieve riches and power with the sweat of his brow. The saga begins in the 1860s. James Onedin (Peter Gilmore) is a headstrong young skipper from Liverpool who's tired of seeing all the profits from his voyages go to his shipping-magnate boss. Onedin is determined to start his own shipping line and when an opportunity to buy a ship arises he doesn't balk at marrying the previous owner's daughter in order to cement the partnership. With his new ship Charlotte Rose-and a new wife who proves to be a shrewd business-partner-Onedin begins to compete with his former employer for the most profitable routes, willing to risk everything to build his business empire. The big shipping lines, of course, want to crush the ambitious young upstart as quickly as possible. While not quite "Dallas-by-the-Sea", The Onedin Line is filled with intrigue and Gilmore is riveting in the lead role-dashing, ruthless, with a very impressive set of whiskers. As befits a BBC costume-drama the period detail is wonderful, especially in the sailing scenes. [+]
The sight of the Charlotte Rose heeling to a strong breeze as the stirring theme music swells will be enough to make a sailor of any viewer. -Simon Leake, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / Boys On The Side [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • James Remar
  • Matthew McConaughey
  • Whoopi Goldberg
  • Mary-Louise Parker
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Herbert Ross
Release date: 1996-05-13
Run time: 112 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Boys On The Side [1995] / Warner Home Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / To Dance With The White Dog [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Hume Cronyn
  • Harley Cross
  • Jessica Tandy
  • Christine Baranski
  • Glenn Jordan
  • Terry Beaver
Release date: 1997-05-19
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £22.99

Review To Dance With The White Dog [1994] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Children Of A Lesser God [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Marlee Matlin
  • William Hurt
  • Philip Bosco
  • Allison Gompf
  • Randa Haines
  • Piper Laurie
Release date: 1996-06-24
Run time: 115 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.79

Review Children Of A Lesser God [1986] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Art House Productions Ltd. / The Belt [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • James Russo
  • Eleonora Brigliadori
  • Anna Bonaiuto
  • Karen Moore
  • Giuliana Gamba
  • Giuliana Calandra
Release date: 1995-07-24
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.98

Review The Belt [1989] / Art House Productions Ltd.:


Review Artificial Eye / Les Enfants Du Paradis [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Pierre Brasseur
  • María Casares
  • Pierre Renoir
  • Marcel Carné
  • Arletty
  • Jean-Louis Barrault
Release date: 1993-10-11
Run time: 181 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £19.99

Review Les Enfants Du Paradis [1945] / Artificial Eye:

A film which regularly charts high in critics' polls of the best films of all time, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert's masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis is as solid a landmark in French film history as the Eiffel Tower is on the Parisian landscape. And at 187 minutes running time, it's a massy edifice indeed, built from a rambunctious cast of characters-ranging from pickpockets and prostitutes to aristocrats and actors-whose lives intersect around the Theatre des Funambules, a popular Parisian theatre on the Boulevard du Crime, during the 1840s. (The title refers to the poor who can only afford seats in the upper galleries of the theatre. ) The heart of the plot is a love story between mime artiste Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and streetwalker Garance (the magnificent, sand-paper-voiced Arletty). When Garance is falsely accused of pickpocketing, Baptiste provides a mimed alibi for her to the police (one of the film's most famous set pieces). The rose she later throws him in gratitude sets off a romantic obsession, one of several that structure the film, as do love triangles, duels, and tortured confessions of feeling. Thematically, Les Enfant du Paradis gnaws over typically French cinematic preoccupations: illusion and reality, the nature of performance, the indomitable spirit of the proletariat and so on, all made the more charged and poignant when you know the film was shot during the Nazi occupation. (One actor, Robert Le Vigan, was reportedly a Nazi collaborator and disappeared during the filming under mysterious circumstances and so had to be replaced by Pierre Renoir. ) -Leslie Felperin.

Review Warner Home Video / Something To Talk About [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Duvall
  • Lasse Hallström
  • Gena Rowlands
  • Dennis Quaid
  • Julia Roberts
  • Kyra Sedgwick
Release date: 1997-02-03
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £12.99

Review Something To Talk About [1996] / Warner Home Video:

Something to Talk About is a well-intentioned but strangely cold tale that concerns an emotionally repressed Southern belle (Julia Roberts) who separates from her husband (Dennis Quaid) after discovering he is an unabashed philanderer. Pressed by her dominating father (Robert Duvall) into reconciling with her spouse, Roberts's character chafes against so much male control over her destiny. Defended by a fiercely independent sister (a catchy performance by Kyra Sedgwick), the heroine develops the nerve to plot her own course in life while her mother (Gena Rowlands) finds the gumption to throw her own mate out of the house. The script by Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise) is intelligent but hardly clear, and direction by Lasse Hallström (Once Around) can't keep Khouri's unfocused scenes and uncertain purpose from dissolving like sand castles in the rain. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review 4 Front Video / The Age Of Innocence [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Michelle Pfeiffer
  • Winona Ryder
  • Daniel Day-Lewis
  • Richard E. Grant
  • Sian Phillips
  • Martin Scorsese
Release date: 2002-07-01
Run time: 132 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.98

Review The Age Of Innocence [1993] / 4 Front Video:

Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the centre of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), a somewhat diffident young man engaged to marry the very respectable May Welland (Winona Ryder). But Archer is distracted by May's cousin, the Countess Olenska (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer), recently returned from Europe. As a married woman seeking a divorce, the countess is an embarrassment to all of New York society. But Archer is fascinated by her quick intelligence and worldly ways. Scorsese closely observes the tiny details of this world and this impossible situation; this is a movie in which the shift of someone's eyes can be as significant as the firing of a gun. The director's sense of colour has never been keener, and his work with the actors is subtle. That's Joanne Woodward narrating, telling us only as much as we need to know-which is one reason why the climax of The Age of Innocence comes as such a surprise. -Robert Horton Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct The Age of Innocence, an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about the manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. [+]
But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the centre of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), a somewhat diffident young man engaged to marry the very respectable May Welland (Winona Ryder). But Archer is distracted by May's cousin, the Countess Olenska (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer), who has recently returned from Europe. As a married woman seeking a divorce, the Countess is an embarrassment to all of New York society. But Archer is fascinated by her quick intelligence and worldly ways. Scorsese closely observes the tiny details of this world and this impossible situation; this is a film in which the shift of someone's eyes can be as significant as the firing of a gun. The director's sense of colour has never been keener, and his work with the actors is subtle. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review 2 Entertain Video / I Want You [1951]
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Robson|Dana Andrews|Farley Granger|Dorothy McGuire
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £19.99

Review I Want You [1951] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 4 Front Video / Color of Night [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Rush
  • Lesley Ann Warren
  • Jane March
  • Bruce Willis
  • Ruben Blades
  • Brad Dourif
Release date: 1997-09-08
Run time: 117 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.77

Review Color of Night [1994] / 4 Front Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Bennett
  • Humphrey Bogart
  • Tim Holt
  • Barton MacLane
  • John Huston
  • Water Huston
Release date: 2001-02-19
Run time: 121 min.
Price: £9.99

Review Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) / Warner Home Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Middlemarch [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony Page
  • Juliet Aubrey
  • Patrick Malahide
  • Robert Hardy
  • Trevyn McDowell
  • Douglas Hodge
Release date: 1994-04-05
Run time: 357 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.95

Review Middlemarch [1994] / 2 Entertain Video:

This BBC adaptation of George Eliot's Middlemarch is so remarkable that after viewing it disaffected English Literature students may find themselves revisiting the once-dreaded novel with pleasurable anticipation. Over the course of six hours, we are immersed in the lives of Dorothea Brooke, Mr Ladislaw, Dr Lydgate and, by the end, you'll be wanting even more. Set in the fictional town of Middlemarch in the early 19th century, the stories of the townsfolk are woven seamlessly together, with strands of political fervour and social commentary subtly incorporated. Dorothea (Juliet Aubrey) wants desperately to make something of her life; however, as a woman she is forbidden the study of Greek and Latin and no one takes her notions of societal improvement seriously. She chooses to marry the elderly Rev. Casaubon (Patrick Malahide), a scholarly man whom she can aid in his work. Meanwhile, new to Middlemarch is the handsome Dr Lydgate (Douglas Hodge), who has grand notions for running a free hospital and finding a cure for cholera. His plans are sidetracked, however, when the beautiful but materialistic Rosie Vincy (Trevyn McDowell) sets her sights on him. Other sub-plots run throughout, including Rev. Casaubon's dashing but disapproved-of cousin Will Ladislaw (Rufus Sewell), who has his eye on Dorothea; the scandals of banker Mr Bulstrode (Peter Jeffrey); and the prodigal son Fred Vincy (Jonathan Firth), who urgently wants the hand of Mary but can't find the money or an honest career to provide for her. [+]
Each of the actors fully embodies his or her role, and none of the performances are standout because they are all wonderful. The locations are dark and fitting to the mood, and the costumes and set decorations are period perfect. For anyone who enjoys the BBC's adaptations of great novels or for those just looking for a great story to sink their teeth into, Middlemarch will not disappoint. -Jenny Brown, Amazon. com.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Edge Of Doom [1950]
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Robson|Dana Andrews|Joan Evans|Farley Granger
Run time: 97 min.
Price: £8.99

Review Edge Of Doom [1950] / 2 Entertain Video:


Actors & Directors
  • ElizabethTaylor
  • Helmut Berger
  • Keith Baxter
  • Larry Preece
  • Henry Fonda
Run time: 99 min.
Price: £4.99

Review Ash Wednesday (1973) / Parkfield Entertaintment MKPPOO16:

PAL - VHS

Review Contender Entertainment Group / The Cops - Volume 1 Of 4 - Episodes 1 And 2
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Chatterton
  • Danny Seward
  • Katy Cavanagh
  • Margaret Blakemore
  • Harry Bradbeer
  • Ken Kitson
Release date: 1999-10-04
Run time: 100 min.
Price: £12.99

Review The Cops - Volume 1 Of 4 - Episodes 1 And 2 / Contender Entertainment Group:

It's grim up North for the cops in The Cops, the BBC's answer to ITV's long-running police drama series The Bill. Bolton, Lancashire doubles for the fictional Northern town of Stanton; Bolton's not such a bad place in reality, but in this show it looks like war-torn Beirut. Unlike their soft Southern counterparts, the cops in Stanton swear copiously, get involved in fistfights and generally behave badly. Little wonder when you contemplate the grim reality of their daily round amongst all the "dirty, thieving, lying scumbags" they have to deal with (both criminals and their police colleagues). This is soap opera masquerading as documentary, shot in subjective fly-on-the-wall fashion and with semi-improvised dialogue that enhances the documentary feel. There's no hummable theme-tune and every episode leaps without preamble in media res into the thick of the action. The result is a show with all the character-driven tension of a soap allied to the voyeurism and unpredictability of docudrama. It's an original combination that makes for compulsive viewing. -Mark Walker From the back cover: Episode 1: Probationary policewoman Mel Draper, seriously hung-over and worse for wear following a night out with her mates, is called to investigate a suspicious death following complaints from a neigbour who notices a foul stench coming from the flat above. Episode 2: Giffen attempts to reason with a suicidal man on the roof of a department store. [+]
Danny, after rescuing a damsel in distress, finds himself engaging in a bizarre sex game, brought on by the excitement provoked by his policeman's uniform.

Review 4 Front Video / Ironweed [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Carroll Baker
  • Meryl Streep
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Hector Babenco
Release date: 1999-02-08
Run time: 137 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £14.95

Review Ironweed [1987] / 4 Front Video:


Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
The Forsyte Saga, Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook / Murder In The Mews [1989], The Debt Collector [1999], La Bonne Annee [1973], The Onedin Line - Part 3 [1971], Boys On The Side [1995], To Dance With The White Dog [1994], Children Of A Lesser God [1986], The Belt [1989], Les Enfants Du Paradis [1945], Something To Talk About [1996], The Age Of Innocence [1993], I Want You [1951], Color of Night [1994], Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948), Middlemarch [1994], Edge Of Doom [1950], Ash Wednesday (1973), The Cops - Volume 1 Of 4 - Episodes 1 And 2, Ironweed [1987]

Top headlines:
Search 
DVD Rental: try it for free