Any film aiming to be Hitchcockian has a lot to live up to: with its blonde heroine, eerie atmosphere and sweeping score, Killing Me Softly sets itself up for a fall even before the plot kicks in. Stylishly filmed by Chen Kaige (the Chinese director's first English feature), this London-set thriller is based on Nicci French's novel about a young American woman, Alice (Heather Graham), and her passionate affair with the mysterious stranger Adam (Joseph Fiennes). Leaving her partner and surrendering herself to Adam's sexual experimentation, Alice only begins to suspect something's not quite right once she's married him and a series of ominous notes arrive through the post. Add to this Adam's mysterious first marriage, an intriguing locked cupboard and enigmatic sister (Natasha McElhone), and Alice begins to look for a way out, in fear of her life. The fact that Alice sleeps with a stranger at the drop of a hat makes for a shaky premise, but what ensues can only be described as complete nonsense, with the plot twisting its way to a ludicrous climax. Smirking his way through the film, Fiennes is as miscast as Graham, who's clearly there for the soft porn love scenes and not the ones where she's a reporter replete with big spectacles. Graham in the buff is certainly going to attract a few viewers, but for the rest of us Killing Me Softly is just too plain daft to bother with. On the DVD: Killing Me Softly offers a sparse set of extras, including a featurette that repeats most of the footage seen in the trailer, also included. Short interviews with cast members Graham, Fiennes and McElhone can be found here alongside comments from director Kaige and some footage of the shoot itself, all of which add little to the overall package. -Laura Bushell.

Seas boil, heavens fall, and Demi Moore takes a candlelit bath in this effective apocalyptic chiller. The prosthetic-enhanced Moore plays a pregnant non-believer whose baby may hold the key to impending Armageddon. Logic is not exactly the strong point in this well-acted, stylish, theological grab bag, but the random collection of horrific images manages to work more often than not in this acceptable time waster for fans of The Omen and The Exorcist. Also starring Michael Biehn (The Terminator), the always-welcome John Heard in a brief cameo and the exceptional Jürgen Prochnow as a mysterious stranger who could either be from the extreme North or way, way down South. -Andrew Wright.

Romeo Is Bleeding is the flawed black comedy from director Peter Medak (The Krays) about a bad cop who slowly gets his due. Gary Oldman plays yet another quirky character, this time a New York detective on the take. His life goes haywire as he squares off with a Russian hit woman. Despite an intriguing cast and great dialogue, the movie becomes a bit too eccentric for its own good as several actors have nothing to do. The high point is Lena Olin, who finally has a role she can sink her teeth into: her zesty, monstrous assassin, Mona Demarkov, is one of the great movie villains. -Doug Thomas.

Actor Kiefer Sutherland makes his directorial debut with Truth or Consequences NM, a ho-hum film about a threadbare subject: a drug heist that goes badly, resulting in the bad guys having to kidnap two people and the ensuing complications. A fine cast assures good performances all around, but it's hard to go down this narrative road for the umpteenth time in the 90s. One bonus is the presence of Kim Dickens, an interesting actress who started becoming more visible in films in 1997 and 1998 (Zero Effect, Great Expectations). The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, optional French and Spanish soundtracks and subtitles, and theatrical trailer. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Tough but moving, Thunderheart is an unusual story about an arrogant FBI agent (Val Kilmer) who participates in a federal investigation of a murder on an Oglala Sioux reservation. Kilmer's character is part Sioux himself, a detail that leaves him cold as he sets about pushing his way through the community to find facts on the case. In time, however, he begins to feel an ethnic tug and grows increasingly sympathetic to the locals and hostile toward his fellow G-men, much to the dismay of his agency mentor (Sam Shepard). The script is based on real events that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 in South Dakota (involving an armed stand-off between Indian activists and the FBI, an event that prompted Thunderheart director Michael Apted to make a companion documentary, Incident at Oglala). The conclusion of Thunderheart feels like politically charged whimsy, but the real strength of the film is Kilmer's outstanding performance as a man in transformation. Apted's clear-eyed depiction of the Sioux's spiritual and cultural continuity with the past has none of the cloying romanticism of other films about Indians. Produced by Robert De Niro. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com -This text refers to the VHS edition of this video.

This film, which again pairs Richard Gere and Kim Basinger (who starred in 1986's No Mercy), offers up elements of classic noir: a hapless man becomes intimately involved with a beautiful blonde who may or may not be who or what she appears to be. Dedicated psychiatrist Isaac Barr (Gere) reluctantly, and then more obsessively, becomes involved with Heather Evans (Basinger), the sister of his patient, Diana Baylor (Uma Thurman). Evans is unhappily married to a gangster (appropriately played by a muscular and menacing Eric Roberts in a trademark role). Gere and Basinger make a credible, if dangerous couple, and Thurman delivers a subtle, understated performance and demonstrates her range and potential. The thriller is appropriately shot in gorgeous San Francisco, where the literal and figurative curving and hilly roads wind throughout. Credit legendary art director Dean Tavoularis for some amazing sets and scenes, notably the elegantly cavernous restaurant where Evans and her husband have a fateful dinner. This film is, in a way, glossy director Phil Joanou's Hitchcockian tribute-as a climactic lighthouse scene best demonstrates. Final Analysis doesn't offer an intimate look at its characters, but a beautifully stylized one, moody and gloomy. The intricate plot experiments with the device of "pathological intoxication," in which the subject completely loses control after drinking alcohol. And this doesn't mean a conventional ugly drunk; it means a frightening psychotic. [+]

Author Michael Crichton and director Philip Kaufman had a falling-out over the script for Rising Sun, based on Crichton's best-selling novel (which was controversial for its take on the Japanese invasion of American business in the early 1990s). Kaufman ultimately won, doing an above-average job creating a murder-mystery based on the culture clash between Los Angeles cops and Japanese multinational business interests. When a prostitute is murdered at the opening of a new LA headquarters for a Japanese company, detective Wesley Snipes is forced to call upon retired cop (and Japanophile) Sean Connery to help solve the murder. But he runs into obstruction from the Japanese, as well as a high-tech cover-up, while having to deal with anti-Japanese sentiments from people on his own team. Rising Sun is intriguing, if overlong. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.