"Actor: Carlos Ayala"

• Con Man | DVD | (16/07/2018) from £3.90   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The unbelievable true story of Barry Minkow, the youngest person ever to defraud Wall Street and who by the age of 21 was worth a staggering 100 Million Dollars. After being sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud, racketeering, money laundering, embezzlement, and tax evasion you would think a lesson was learnt but in the case of Minkow, once a Con, always a Con. This roller coaster ride of power, sex, greed and money includes an impressive cast of Mark Hamill (The Last Jedi), James Caan (The Godfather), Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation), Armand Assante (American Gangster), Talia Shire (Rocky, The Godfather), Elisabeth Röhm (American Hustle) and introduces Justin Baldoni.

• Ali G | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  By the marginal-or-miss standards of British TV spin-offs, Ali G in da House is well above adequate, even though it drags out every smart line or decent routine until they lie dead on the screen just begging for a laugh track. The film pulls back a bit from the absolute obnoxiousness of the Ali G TV skits, which makes Sacha Baron Cohen's character bearable at feature length, but also significantly less funny. Here it is finally confirmed that Ali is a weedy white kid called Alistair who pretends to be Jamaican, rather than a weedy white comedian doing a Jamaican character. Believe it or not, there's actually a plot, with a scheming Chancellor of the Exchequer (Charles Dance) recruiting Ali as a parliamentary candidate for Staines in a devious attempt to unseat Prime Minister Michael Gambon. Yet this framework is really an excuse for the sketch-like bits, such as a Los Angeles ghetto movie fantasy, Ali G addressing a meeting of lesbian feminists ("I've seen a lot of your videos"), and Charles Dance forced to read a budget speech in Ali G speak. Oddly, the film makes early-1990s jokes about Tories rather than going after New Labour, but any political satire here comes in second to knob-polishing jokes and sometimes-hilarious patter. Luckless inhabitants of the M4 corridor will nod ruefully at the final gag, in which Ali G persuades the PM not to devastate Staines and nods agreement as Gambon reassures him, "it's all right, we'll destroy Slough instead". --Kim Newman