"Actor: Dominic Chianese Jr"

• The Sopranos: Complete Series 2 | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £69.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £61.99

  The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme-makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass. Other running sub-plots include the hapless efforts by Chris (Michael Imperioli) to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme-makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around. Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, and devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

• All About The Benjamins | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £10.83   |  Saving you £9.16 (84.58%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One's a top dog bounty hunter; the other a two-bit hustler. Add to the mix a botched diamond heist a lost wallet with a winning lottery ticket and one thing becomes clear: it's 'All About The Benjamins'...

• Once in the Life | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £8.95   |  Saving you £0.03 (0.50%)   |  RRP £5.99

  'Once In The Life' is a powerful urban crime thriller written directed and starring Lawrence Fishburne. Estranged half-brothers Torch and Mike 20/20 are re-united in a prison cell. Both are involved in the citys underground crime scene - Torch to raise cash to feed his drug habit and Mike wanting to raise enough to enable him to leave crime behind. Mike is planning to intercept a heroin deal and persuades Torch to help. When the manic junkie-brother shoots one of the young drug couriers the pair take refuge in an abandoned building. Mike seeks help from his friend and old cell-mate Tony not realising that the dope they have stolen is his. Based on Fishburne's play 'Riff Raff'.

• Ricochet/Once in the Life/A Murder of Crows | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ricochet: 'Cape Fear' meets its match as uber-producer Joel Silver turns on the terror in the fast and furious no-frills thriller 'Ricochet'. Denzel Washington is crack cop turned deputy DA Nick Styles. LA's hottest hero he's on a roll and a rocket ride to the top. John Lithgow is vindictive sadistic psycho Earl Blake sent down by Styles and he's out for revenge. For Blake taking Styles' life will not be enough - tearing it apart will be much more fun! The ultimate in screen suspense Ricochet takes the pace to breaking point as one man's pain becomes another man's very twisted pleasure. Once In The Life: A powerful urban crime thriller. Estranged half-brothers Torch and Mike 20/20 are re-united in a prison cell. Both are involved in the citys underground crime scene - Torch to raise cash to feed his drug habit and Mike wanting to raise enough to to enable him to leave crime behind. Mike is planning to intercerpt a heroin deal and persuades Torch to help. When the manic junkie-brother shoots one the young drug couriers the pair take refuge in an abandoned building. Mike seeks help from his friend and old cell-mate Tony not realising that the dope they have stolen is his. Based on Fisburne's play 'Riff Raff'. Murder Of Crows: Lawson Russell is a prominent New Orleans attorney whose legal savvy and unbeatable charm have gained him the reputation of being a man who can get even the most guilty suspects off the hook. That is until Russell can no longer bear to defend the guilty and drops his wealthy client Truman Banks. Disbarred and disgraced Russell leaves for Key West to write a novel and attempt to pull the pieces of his life back together. A chance meeting and moment of indiscretion put Russell into a dangerous web of murder treachery and deceit. Time is running out as Russell battles to prove that he is an innocent man...