Paul Newman and Julie Andrews star in Torn Curtain, what must unfortunately be called one of Alfred Hitchcock's lesser efforts. Still, sub-par Hitchcock is better than a lot of what's out there, and this one is well worth a look. Newman plays cold-war physicist Michael Armstrong, while Andrews plays his lovely assistant-and-fiancée Sarah Sherman. Armstrong has been working on a missile defence system that will "make nuclear defence obsolete", and naturally both sides are very interested. All Sarah cares about is the fact that Michael has been acting awfully fishy lately. The suspense of Torn Curtain is by nature not as thrilling as that in the average Hitchcock film-much of it involves sitting still and wondering if the bad guys are getting closer. Still, Hitchcock manages to amuse himself: there is some beautifully clever camera work and an excruciating sequence that illustrates the frequent Hitchcock point that death is not a tidy business. -Ali Davis.

While scoring high-profile credits as a screenwriter (including The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark), Lawrence Kasdan made his directorial debut with this steamy, contemporary film noir in the tradition of Double Indemnity and other classics from the 1940s. In one of his most memorable roles, William Hurt plays a Florida lawyer unwittingly drawn into a web of deceit spun by Kathleen Turner (in her screen debut) as a married socialite who plots to kill off her husband with Hurt's assistance. Kasdan's dialogue is a hoot (sometimes it borders on satire) and the sultry atmosphere is a perfect complement to the perspiration-soaked chemistry between Hurt and Turner, whose love scenes caused quite a stir when the film was released in 1981. John Barry's score sets the provocative mood and both Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke are splendid in memorable supporting roles. -Jeff Shannon.

It's not unusual for Hollywood to remake European hits. What is unusual is the director of the original getting the chance to helm the new version with an American cast, which is what happened with this film based on an intensely creepy Dutch film of the same name (both directed by George Sluizer). Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock are on vacation when, while stopped at a crowded rest area, she disappears. He devotes the next several years to discovering what happened to her, ruining his life in the process. When he does get a clue, it leads him to Jeff Bridges, who plays a bizarre and highly organized individual whose motives are almost as strange as he is. Bridges is spooky, but Sluizer ultimately is undone by Hollywood's demand for a happy ending, which makes this film affecting but far less unsettling than the original. -Marshall Fine Forget Hitchcock, forget Brian De Palma, The Vanishing is one of the scariest, most disturbing thrillers ever made. Yet there's not a knife, a gun, or a drop of blood in sight. The terror in George Sluizer's film is wholly psychological, insidiously uncoiling itself before our incredulous eyes. A young Dutch couple on holiday in France stop at a motorway service station, where the girl inexplicably vanishes. [+]

Although it received mixed reactions from critics and audiences alike when released in 1998, this supernatural thriller benefits from a sustained atmosphere of anticipation and dread, and its combination of detective mystery and demonic mischief is handled with ample style and intelligence. Under the direction of Gregory Hoblit (who fared better with Primal Fear), Denzel Washington plays detective John Hobbes, who witnesses the gas-chamber execution of a serial killer (Elias Koteas). But when another series of murders begins, Hobbes suspects that the killer's evil spirit has survived and is possessing the bodies of others to do its evil bidding. Even Hobbes's trusted partner (John Goodman) thinks the detective is losing his grip on reality, but the dire warnings of a noted linguist (Embeth Davidtz) confirm Hobbes's far-out theory, and his case intensifies toward a fateful showdown. Although its idea is better than its execution, and the story's film noir ambitions are never fully accomplished, this slickly directed thriller has some genuinely effective moments in which evil forces are entwined into the fabric of everyday reality. Among the highlights is a memorable scene in which Detective Hobbes must track the killer as the evil spirit is transferred between many people via physical contact. Even if the film is ultimately less than the sum of its parts, it's an intriguing hybrid that resides in the same cinematic neighbourhood as Seven and The Silence of the Lambs with a cast that also includes Donald Sutherland and James Gandolfini. Included on the DVD is a full-length audio commentary by director Hoblit, screenwriter Nicholas Kazan and producer Charles Roven. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

The Jackal is filmmaking by numbers: take two huge stars, Richard Gere and Bruce Willis, and pit them opposite each other in a plot that's already been audience tested. That director Michael Caton Jones' film is based not on Frederick Forsyth's novel but on the script for the 1973 original starring James Fox is the first clue that something here is amiss. Fred Zinneman's The Day of the Jackal was a genuinely taut and claustrophobic thriller; the remake is like a Rocky & Bullwinkle take on international terrorism disguised as an action movie. Dashing IRA terrorist, Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), is sprung from jail to help the FBI Deputy Director Carton Preston (Sidney Poitier) track down The Jackal, an amoral international terrorist who is a master of disguise. The FBI believes he is about to assassinate a US political bigwig and is engaged in a race against time to discover exactly who the target is and where they will be felled. Throughout the film Gere sports an Irish accent as ill-fitting and phoney as the bushy lip-wig that Willis adopts at one point as a disguise. The usually warm-hearted Willis plays the steel-jawed terrorist with a cool reserve, but he doesn't have much character development to work with (apart from a misguided attempt to introduce a gay subtext). At over two hours of running time with plenty of exposition and precious few action sequences, this film is a test of will for the audience as well as the protagonists. On the DVD: The DVD includes a lengthy "making of" featurette, several deleted scenes and an alternate ending with some small dialogue changes. There is also an exceedingly dry director's commentary by Michael Caton Jones which muses on such mind-numbingly dull details as the colour of the subway platform in the film's climactic sequence. [+]

The Red Squirrel sees Jota, an ex-pop star with a penchant for doing nothing very much, standing on a bridge contemplating suicide. He's pulled back to reality by a dramatic motorcycle accident and goes to help the victim, an attractive young woman apparently physically unscathed but with severe amnesia. At the hospital he is assumed to be her boyfriend, and so the deception begins, as he invents everything from her name (Lisa) through to the details of their imaginary four-year relationship. Though based on a lie, it gradually becomes real but is Lisa really an amnesiac or is she deceiving the deceiver? Who is the mysterious Felix, leaving pleas on a late-night radio programme to his missing, mentally disturbed 25-year-old wife, Sofia? As an array of incidental characters get drawn in, each seems to be practising their own deceit. This is a beautifully wrought, endlessly thought-provoking film, complemented by Alberto Iglesias's fabulous score. The two leads are superb: as Jota, Nancho Nova is both fey and hypnotic while Elisa (Emma Suárez) is wonderfully whimsical. Not surprisingly, it garnered a whole heap of awards, from Best Foreign Film at Cannes to Best Score at the Goya Awards. And the significance of the title? Red squirrels are, apparently, quick and cunning creatures; just like human beings. On the DVD: The Red Squirrel is presented in Dolby Digital original Spanish soundtrack with option of English subtitles and anamorphic widescreen print. The usual stuff is on offer as special features, including trailers for other world cinema films, filmographies of the director and two leading characters, and a concise but considered analysis of the plot. [+]