A film of real quality whose strengths might be a tad too familiar, Hearts in Atlantis is based on a chunk of a Stephen King novel which reprises the themes found in the film Stand By Me. David Morse-in the traditional role of grown-up version of the kid-goes to his old home for a funeral, which triggers a film-length flashback to the early 1960s. Eleven-year-old Bobby (Anton Yelchin) lives with a brittle, disappointed single mum (Hope Davis) until his life is transformed by the influence of an elderly man, Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins), who moves into the apartment above and hires the kid to read for him, also imparting temporarily some of his psychic power and beseeching him to be on the look-out for the sinister "low men" pursuing him. Screenwriter William Goldman prunes the supernatural/science fictional elements, leaving vague the origins of the low men who could as easily be an evil government organisation or the mob as pursuers from another dimension; director Scott Hicks (Shine) spends much more time on golden, melancholic nostalgia and imparting harsh and tender life lessons. Hopkins plays a benevolent Hannibal Lecter, dispensing wisdom and posing elegantly, but turning up the chill for a few scary King-type scenes. The kids are excellent, and Davis shows promise in a difficult role. On the DVD: Hearts in Atlantis on disc offers the trailer, a gallery of stills (Hicks horns his way into most of them), a 29-minute one-to-one interview between the director and Hopkins that teases out some interesting material. Also included is a thoughtful and detailed if unassuming commentary track from Hicks. -Kim Newman.

This first sequel to Dirty Harry was written by a couple of strong voices, writer-directors Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) and John Milius (Farewell to the King). But that doesn't mean the film is particularly good. After Don Siegel's ferociously dark style in the first movie, Ted Post's blocky, television-ish direction in Magnum Force is a huge letdown. The story doesn't win any prizes, either. Eastwood's San Francisco detective Harry Callahan (apparently having retrieved his badge after throwing it away at the end of Dirty Harry) takes on a vigilante squad within the city's police force. David Soul is pretty convincing as the major spokesman for these right-wing avengers. Eastwood, on the other hand, had already turned Callahan from fascinating outsider in Siegel's film to purveyor of tough-guy shtick in this one. -Tom Keogh.

A by-the-numbers action flick featuring a stern Arnold Schwarzenegger, Raw Deal has all the traditional traits of the genre. Schwarzenegger is a disgraced former FBI agent who winds up as sheriff of a backwater Southern town. He is given a chance to reclaim his job when the head of the Bureau offers him reinstatement if he'll go undercover to capture the mob boss responsible for killing his son. Schwarzenegger must get close enough to gain the trust of the gangster without being discovered as a mole, while gathering enough evidence to take him down. One of Schwarzenegger's early films, in which he honed his persona, Raw Deal offers up the usual quotient of gun battles and tough talk, with a trace of self-deprecating humour from its star, making it reasonably worthwhile entertainment. -Robert Lane.

In San Francisco everyone can hear Veronica (Alien) Cartwright scream. In the ultimate urban nightmare, to sleep is to die, to be replaced by a soulless alien duplicate. Less a remake of the 1956 classic of the same name, more a fresh vision of Jack Finney's source novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the archetypal story of humans supplanted by unemotional "vegetable pods". A masterstroke is the introduction of SF icon Leonard Nimoy as a very West Coast relationships guru determined to explain everything in terms of urban psychological alienation, and the story does prove more unsettling on the big city's forbidding streets. This is very much an ensemble movie, with outstanding performances from Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams, and what proved to be the first of several key genre roles for Jeff (The Fly, Jurassic Park, Independence Day) Goldblum. With minimal effects and very little gore, but filled with unnerving camera angles and a underpinned by a chillingly effective score, the film is relentlessly suspenseful, culminating in a sequence of terrifying set-pieces and a truly spine-tingling finale. More resonant with each passing year, the story was reworked in 1993 as Body Snatchers. On the DVD: While the print is more than acceptable there is a loss of detail and some shimmering artefacts in the very dark scenes. The disc is not anamorphically enhanced, which really should be a standard DVD feature. Still, the picture is considerably ahead of VHS and the stereo sound is highly unsettling. [+]

This 1941 melodrama is memorable both for its strong central performances and their intimations of how the previous decade's crime dramas would evolve into film noir-no accident, given the solid direction of veteran Raoul Walsh and the hand of screenwriter John Huston, who teamed with the author of its novelistic source, WR Burnett (Little Caesar). In the central character of Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, a fictional peer to John Dillinger, Humphrey Bogart finds a defining role that anticipates the underlying fatalism and moral ambiguity visible in the career-making roles soon to follow, including Sam Spade in Huston's directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon (1941). Earle suggests a prescient variation on the enraged sociopaths that were fixtures of the gangster melodramas that shaped Bogart's early screen image. Pardoned from a long prison stretch, the weary robber is clearly more eager to savour his new freedom than immediately swing back into action. But his early release has been engineered by a mobster who wants Earle to pull off a high-stakes burglary, setting in motion a plot that is a prototype for doomed heist capers-a small, yet potent sub-genre that would later include Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). What gives High Sierra its power, however, isn't the crime itself but Earle's collision with the younger, brasher confederates picked to help him, and the hard-edged but vulnerable taxi dancer they're competing for, played forcefully by Ida Lupino, who actually received top billing. Her attraction to the reluctant Earle is complicated by a convoluted sub-plot designed to showcase then starlet Joan Leslie, but the movie finally moves into its most gripping moments when the wounded Earle, pursued by police, flees ever higher toward the mountains. His final, suicidal showdown would become a clich&éacute; of sorts in lesser films, but here it provides a wrenching climax sealed by Lupino's vivid final scene. -Sam Sutherland.

From the outset, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was about conflict. Producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller challenged the utopian ideals of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek universe to create something totally different from its predecessors. That meant no familial camaraderie, squeaky-clean Federation diplomacy, or beige décor. Instead they wanted interpersonal friction, ruthless enemies (Gamma Quadrant Imperialists-The Dominion) and rebellion at every turn. The DS9 concept was originally facilitated by introducing the Cardassian/Bajoran war during The Next Generation's final days. After a muted first reception fans gradually came to accept the new look, but no one liked Star Trek without a starship and eventually the producers capitulated to viewers' wishes by introducing the USS Defiant (an apt name) in Season 3. Relying far less on technobabble than TNG, DS9 was unafraid to focus on matters of the spirit instead, demonstrating a ballsy independence from its parent shows. Taking up the gauntlet thrown down by Babylon 5, improved CGI space battles also became a fan favourite. Throughout the increasingly serialised story arc there were rebellious factions within the different establishments: Kira had belonged to the Shakaar resistance cell; the Maquis was Starfleet vs Cardassians; section 31 was a secret Starfleet group; the True Way was a Bajoran group opposed to peace; the Cardassians had their Obsidian Order and the Romulans their Gestapo-like Tal Shiar. Yet for all its constant bickering and espionage (even Bashir got to be James Bond), there was always some contemporary social commentary lurking: the Ferengi were used as a comedic foil to frown on materialistic greed; drugs were looked at via the Jem'Hadar foot soldiers' addiction to Ketracel White. [+]