Anti-Trust is a gripping thriller, and although far from being great filmmaking it is at least notable for being about something important and having the will to follow it through. Macro software company NURV, based on a giant "campus" in the Pacific North West and under investigation by the Department of Justice, is planning to launch a proprietary broadband Internet. Ryan Philippe is adequate as the young geek hero, though Tim Robbins dominates the film as CEO Gary Winston, a skilfully cutting interpretation of a power-corrupted software multibillionaire; Gary Sinise offers an equally compelling characterisation. Peter Howitt directs in broad strokes, keeping things exciting if not exactly subtle, while Don Davis' score is alternately suspenseful and overblown. Howard Franklin's screenplay offers surprising plot detail and a couple of good twists while straining credulity with hoary thriller clichés. Nevertheless, the technical stuff is far more accurate than usual, despite the Hollywood compromises. Anti-Trust provides a rallying cry against the global domination of global communications for the profit of the few, the final 15 minutes delivering an uplifting if simplistic wish-fulfilment fantasy. On the DVD: The Dolby Digital 5. 1 sound is highly atmospheric, though the anamorphically enhanced 2. 35:1 image is only average, some grain and artefacting letting down the sleek look and elegant design of the film. [+]

Inspired by Chris Marker's acclaimed short film La Jetée, 12 Monkeys combines intricate, intelligent storytelling with the uniquely imaginative vision of director Terry Gilliam. The story opens in the wintry wasteland of the year 2035, where a virulent plague has forced humans to live in a squalid, oppressively regimented underground. Bruce Willis plays a societal outcast who is given the opportunity to erase his criminal record by "volunteering" to time-travel into the past to obtain a pure sample of the deadly virus that will help future scientists to develop a cure. But in bouncing from 1918 to the early and mid-1990s, he undergoes an ordeal that forces him to question his own perceptions of reality. Caught between the dangers of the past and the devastation of the future, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) who is initially convinced he's insane, and a wacky mental patient (Brad Pitt in a twitchy Oscar-nominated role) with links to a radical group that may have unleashed the deadly virus. Equal parts mystery, tragedy, psychological thriller, and apocalyptic drama, 12 Monkeys ranks as one of the best science fiction films of the 1990s, boosted by Gilliam's visual ingenuity and one of the finest performances of Willis's career. -Jeff Shannon.

Fire Walk With Me is a rare spin-off that refuses to repeat what worked on TV. Despite mannerisms and "draggy" spots, Twin Peaks emerged as one of the wonders of American TV: scary and funny, erotic and serious, offensive and freakish. It meandered in an always interesting but sometimes frustrating way through two seasons, then signed off with a cliff-hanger upon cancellation. When Lynch announced he would continue the saga with a theatrical movie, fans assumed he would: (a) pull out the stops to show what evils really lurked behind the pretty façade of that small town, and (b) wrap up a storyline which tailed off with Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) possessed by the evil spirit "Bob". As it happens, Lynch delivered on (a) but refrained from fulfilling clause (b), opting to do a prequel-adapted in part from The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, a tie-in novel by Jennifer (Boxing Helena) Lynch-which sets up the series by following the last week in the life of the "prom queen from Hell". Fire Walk With Me assumes you will be familiar with the series (some bits are incomprehensible unless you paid attention while other bits are just incomprehensible), making it most accessible to Twin Peaks initiates though sometimes deliberately offensive to them. It then omits several of the show's stars (Michael Ontkean, Richard Beymer, Joan Chen, Sherilyn Fenn) and a great many of the "lovable" aspects (wry jokes, damn fine coffee), relegating MacLachlan to a walk-on since the story happens before Cooper was assigned to Twin Peaks. Some instances of joyless sex and violence exceed anything Lynch could do on television, but for the most part he creates an atmosphere of dread through edgy performances, unsettling lighting and sound effects and sheer grimness. Without the catchphrases and the quirky charm, the film never feels cuddly in the way the TV show did, but it is one of Lynch's finest works and, though deeply uncomfortable, a TV spin-off which ranks with the best in both media. On the DVD: The DVD is Region 0 with a widescreen print, augmented for 16x9 televisions. [+]

Tokyo Raiders stars Tony Leung (well known from such Hong Kong action movies as Hard-Boiled and Bullet in the Head) along with pop stars Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen. When Macy (Chen) gets jilted at the altar in Las Vegas, she returns to Hong Kong to find her fiancé has disappeared-but in his apartment she finds Yung (Cheng), an interior decorator with surprising kung fu skills. Together they go to Japan, where they meet up with Lin (Leung), a private detective with an entourage of kung fu babes and stories that don't quite add up. From there, the plot gets more and more incomprehensible. It has something to do with counterfeit yen and a twisty series of double-crosses, but Tokyo Raiders is really about hip clothes and martial arts razzle-dazzle, all framed by the worst dubbed dialogue you've ever heard-sort of a Hong Kong version of The Mod Squad. Leung has demonstrated his acting chops in films like Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, but he can't make this silliness sound sensible. Still, the actors are sexy, the fight scenes are splashy (if a little confusing), and the movie never wastes too much time getting from one action sequence to the next. A chase that starts out on a motorised skateboard and ends up on a trailer truck hauling new cars is particularly entertaining. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Die Hard with a Vengeance: the second sequel to the mould-making action film Die Hard brings Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) to New York City to face a better villain than in Die Hard 2. Played by Jeremy Irons, he's the brother of the Germanic terrorist-thief Alan Rickman played in the original film. But this bad guy has his sights set higher: on the Federal Reserve's cache of gold. As a distraction, he sets McClane running fool's errands all over New York-and eventually, McClane attracts an unintentional partner, a Harlem dry cleaner (Samuel L Jackson) with a chip on his shoulder. There are some truly great action sequences, though these don't completely obscure the rather large plot holes in the film's final 45 minutes. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. comRansom: when it comes to ramping up to vein-bursting levels of tormented anxiety, Mel Gibson has a kind of mainstream intensity that makes him perfect for his heroic-father role in director Ron Howard's child-kidnapping thriller. Trapped in the middle of any parent's nightmare, Gibson plays a self-made airline mogul whose son (played by Brawley Nolte, son of actor Nick Nolte) is abducted by a close-knit group of uptight kidnappers. But when a king's ransom is demanded for the child's safe return, Mel turns the tables and offers the ransom as reward money for anyone who provides information leading to the kidnappers' arrest. Thus begins a nerve-racking battle of wills and a test of the father's conviction to carry out a plan that could cost his son's life. [+]

When released in 1997, The Gingerbread Man was the only John Grisham movie that did not use one of the popular novelist's bestsellers as its inspiration. Rather, it's based on an original screenplay by Grisham that displays the author's familiar flair for Southern characters and settings within a labyrinthine plot propelled by his trademark narrative twists and turns. Sporting a spot-on Georgian accent, Kenneth Branagh plays a Savannah attorney who comes to the assistance of a troubled woman (Embeth Davidtz) and finds himself enmeshed in a scenario involving the woman's father (Robert Duvall) that grows increasingly complex and dangerous, where nothing, of course, is really as it seems. It's a totally absorbing movie made in the modern film noir tradition; what's most interesting here (and most underrated by critics at the time) is the combination of Grisham's mainstream mystery and the offbeat style of maverick director Robert Altman. Despite a battle with executives that nearly caused Altman to disown the film, The Gingerbread Man demonstrates the director's skill in bringing a fresh, characteristically offbeat approach to conventional material, especially in the use of a threatening hurricane to hold the plot in a state of dangerous urgency. Unfortunately overlooked during its theatrical release, this intelligent thriller provides a fine double bill with Francis Coppola's film of Grisham's The Rainmaker. -Jeff Shannon.

Yes, he's back. and he's still hungry. Hannibal is set 10 years after The Silence of the Lambs, as Dr Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn't had it so good-an outsider from the start, she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion-and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realise that the hideously deformed Verger-who, upon suggestion from Dr Lecter, peeled off his own face-is using her as bait to lure Dr Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he'll capture the good doctor. Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. [+]