"Actor: Lillo"

• A Bronx Tale | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £24.95   |  Saving you £-11.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In his directorial debut two-time Academy Award-Winner Robert De Niro stars as Lorenzo Anello a hard-working bus driver who must stand up to the local mob boss if he is to keep his son from falling into a life of crime. The streets of the Bronx are a tough place for a kid to grow up you learn fast or lose everything. Lorenzo's son Calogero learns about the virtues of hard honest work from his father who owns nothing but his integrity; but he learns about easy money and life on the streets from the man who owns them a mobster called Sonny (Chazz Palminteri). Now Calogero must choose between earning respect like his father or commanding it like Sonny. Always one step away from a broken bottle a pistol whipping or a shotgun blast one young man torn between two worlds just a city block apart is about to learn that the streets run two ways. For every cent of easy money there's a tough and sometimes deadly lesson to be learned.

• Crimson Tide | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £6.38   |  Saving you £11.61 (181.98%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In the typical Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer mould(the partnership yielded Top Gun and Days of Thunder, among many other films), this 1995 drama is a combination of one-dimensional but enjoyable performances, lots of high-tech nonsense taking place onscreen, and mechanistic movie-making at its loudest and most seizure-inducing. Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington play nuclear submarine officers squaring off over the former's apparent intention to do some unauthorized damage to an enemy. Tony Scott (Top Gun) directed, bringing his lustre and pop commercial sense to go with all that Simpson-Bruckheimer eye candy. --Tom Keogh

• Renaissance Man | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When advertising executive Bill Rago gets the chop he soon realises that he can't do anything else and is talked into teaching English grammar to a bunch of army recruits. The army wants him to be disciplined and do everything at the double; his pupils just want him to leave them alone...

• A Bronx Tale | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £17.87   |  Saving you £-10.88 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

• A Bronx Tale | Blu Ray | (18/06/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When his son is befriended by a dangerous local gangster, a father will stop at nothing to ensure his son isn't dragged into the cruel and dangerous underworld of New York.

• Crimson Tide | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In the typical Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer mould(the partnership yielded Top Gun and Days of Thunder, among many other films), this 1995 drama is a combination of one-dimensional but enjoyable performances, lots of high-tech nonsense taking place onscreen, and mechanistic movie-making at its loudest and most seizure-inducing. Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington play nuclear submarine officers squaring off over the former's apparent intention to do some unauthorized damage to an enemy. Tony Scott (Top Gun) directed, bringing his lustre and pop commercial sense to go with all that Simpson-Bruckheimer eye candy. --Tom Keogh

• MOVIE/SPIELFILM In den Strassen der Bronx (A Bronx Tale 1993) | DVD | (28/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Double Platinum | DVD | (19/06/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A soapy backstage melodrama originally produced for network broadcast, Double Platinum downplays showbiz verisimilitude to turn on the tears. With 60s soul queen Diana Ross and 90s pop princess Brandy sharing production credit as well as billing, this formulaic tearjerker focuses on its stars' dramatic chops more than their musical prowess, a choice that won't deter their respective audiences, even as it disappoints less partisan music fans who might have hoped for a stronger musical component.Olivia King (Ross) is the former St. Louis housewife who abandoned her family for pop stardom, only to return 18 years later determined to meet, and reconcile with, her daughter, Kayla (Brandy), now nurturing her own footlight fantasies. But when the prodigal mom finally does reveal herself to the bright, feisty teen, Kayla is outraged and then hard-boiled. Olivia's offer to help the undeniably talented girl make industry contacts is accepted, with the bitter caveat that the superstar should abandon any hopes of a true maternal bond with her embittered daughter. The usually imperious Olivia meekly accepts those terms, while the secretly yearning Kayla keeps up her tough-cookie cover, but the plot telegraphs its ultimate destination, even as the tears flow.Both stars acquit themselves well in the story's stormier clashes, and the emotional tug of the story is well engineered to soak hankies. Less credulous viewers will be hampered by the original songs--when Ross steps on-stage, her regal demeanour and flashy (if occasionally silly) gowns support her supposed status as a legend, but the utterly forgettable, generic songs she mouths deflate that image. That said, viewers less interested in the actual music than the glitzy idea of the two characters may well be content to wallow in the waterworks of a story that could as easily have been titled Divas: The Next Generation. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com