"Actor: Nigel Miguel"

• White Men Can't Jump | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £8.36   |  Saving you £-2.37 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  White Men Can't Jump, writer-director Ron Shelton's 1992 follow-up to the baseball comedy-drama Bull Durham, involves a different sport: basketball, as played on the neighbourhood hustler circuit. Woody Harrelson is Billy Hoyle, a good shooter using his white complexion to fool black players into thinking he can be stomped in easy bets. Billy's banter-filled matchup against Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) on a public court leads to a partnership in which Sidney becomes Billy's manager, taking the white outsider on a tour of the tougher sections of Los Angeles, where he plays homeboys for a few bucks. Inevitably, the two come apart over their innate competitiveness, a situation that has to be re-evaluated after Billy gets into trouble with some underworld creditors. Meanwhile, Billy's girlfriend (Rosie Perez) sits at home preparing herself for a maybe-someday appearance on Jeopardy. As with all of Shelton's sports-related films (Tin Cup, his script for The Best of Times), White Men Can't Jump is less about the fine points of the game than it is the rules by which players survive it. The script is literate and crackling with wit and satire (a scene in which a politician sponsors a black-white "solidarity" game is hilarious). The actors are entirely in sync, and the scenes under and around the hoops are a thrill to watch. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Last Valley | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  James Clavell's The Last Valley is a heartfelt film of paradise found and lost in the midst of the bloody Thirty Years War, a senseless religious conflict long since degenerated into a rabble of looters preying on peasants. It's also a triumph of passion over style. Michael Caine stars as the Captain, a happily tolerant leader whose army of mercenaries--a mix of Protestants and Catholics--murders, pillages and rapes side by side for whichever faction is paying more at the time. Omar Sharif is Vogel, a lone refugee whose flight from the marauding band leads them all to a beautiful village in the mountains. The Captain and Vogel make an unlikely pair: the shrewd mercenary with the dream of peace, and the philosopher-peasant hanging on to his own life in the face of certain death--and their alliance to preserve this Eden and her people stands in contrast to the soldiers who soon become splintered by greed, lust and religious zealotry. Clavell isn't exactly subtle, but his sense of irony is biting: one Christian soldier is ready to lead a mob in righteous battle after a perceived blaspheme, and in the next scene attacks and rapes an innocent Christian maiden he's sworn to protect. The film falters in clumsy battle scenes and awkward dramatic staging, but Caine's complex characterisation of the guarded Captain and Sharif's haunted performance keep the story alive, and the beautiful photography fixes the film like a jewel into its setting. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• The Air Up There | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £7.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (87.61%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A basketball coach searches Africa for raw talent and discovers a Winabi warrior called Saleh...

• Paradise Lost | DVD | (01/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  A company sprays a chemical onto a forest to make space for a holiday village. When Dr. Maurier discovers a child is born with defects she fights to close the project down.