"Actor: Ernest Graves"

• The Dogs Of War | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £11.93   |  Saving you £2.32 (21.74%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs of War is an uneasy mix of espionage and combat that never really succeeds in either role. Based around the character of Paul Shannon, the film follows events in the fictional African state of Zagaro. Hired on a reconnaissance mission by a nameless multi-national corporation, Shannon is captured and tortured before his release, only to return to the country to lead a small band of mercenaries (the dogs of the title) in a bloody coup. The first section of the movie works best, building a real sense of tension and unease, not least through a typically understated performance by Christopher Walken as the paranoid loner who keeps a pistol in his fridge (watch too for a brief appearance from a young Jim Broadbent). There are obvious references to the by-then obsolete school of Vietnam filmmaking in the second section, with the Asian enemy replaced by an African one. The gung-ho mentality of the soldiers is, however, so two-dimensional that the viewer develops little empathy for their plight. The action is slow and drawn out, with the seemingly endless pregnant pauses operating as a means for enabling the film to achieve a reasonable running time. On the DVD: little is on offer here aside from the usual scene selection, audio and subtitle options and original cinema trailer. --Phil Udell

• Hercules In New York | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £6.25   |  Saving you £3.00 (60.12%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Bored with life on Mount Olympus Hercules (Arnold Schwarzenegger in his debut film) decides to visit Earth against the wishes of his father Zeus. Zeus explodes with anger and hurls a thunder-bolt at Hercules who plummets into the sea and is rescued by a freighter bound for New York. There he is befriended by Pretzie (Arnold Stang) who whisks him away from a brawling free-for-all with his shipmates. The plot thickens when Zeus' wife Juno sends the dreaded Nemesis to take away Hercules' god-like strength. Some local hoodlums have just bet a small fortune on Hercules in a weight-lifting competition and when he fails to win a chase all over New York is on.

• Hercules In New York | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £8.69   |  Saving you £-4.70 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Bored with life on Mount Olympus Hercules (Arnold Schwarzenegger in his debut film) decides to visit Earth against the wishes of his father Zeus. Zeus explodes with anger and hurls a thunder-bolt at Hercules who plummets into the sea and is rescued by a freighter bound for New York. There he is befriended by Pretzie (Arnold Stang) who whisks him away from a brawling free-for-all with his shipmates. The plot thickens when Zeus' wife Juno sends the dreaded Nemesis to take away Hercules' god-like strength. Some local hoodlums have just bet a small fortune on Hercules in a weight-lifting competition and when he fails to win a chase all over New York is on.