"Actor: Shiek Mahmud Bey"

• Buffalo Soldiers | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £3.98   |  Saving you £6.01 (151.01%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An Army-base comedy about soldiers "with nothing to kill except time", Buffalo Soldiers invites casual comparison to Catch-22 and M*A*S*H. It's 1989: the Berlin Wall is falling, completing the Cold War's thaw and Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix)--a clerk with the 317th Supply Battalion, stationed in west Germany--combats boredom with a variety of black-market schemes, from cooking heroin for the base's corrupt MPs to dealing stolen arms to the highest bidder, in addition to having a shallow affair with the two-timing wife (Elizabeth McGovern) of his outgoing commander (Ed Harris). Elwood's new CO (Scott Glenn) clamps down on his illegal activities while protecting his daughter (Anna Paquin) from Elwood's advances. Fine casting and positive buzz couldn't prevent this movie's ironic fate: acquired by Miramax one day before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Buffalo Soldiers was shelved for nearly two years, by which time this dark and defiantly amusing exercise in political incorrectness--based on the novel by Robert O'Connor--had been overshadowed by world events. --Jeff Shannon

• Night Falls On Manhattan | DVD | (04/06/2001) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The dominant themes of director Sidney Lumet's distinguished career are in full force in Night Falls on Manhattan, a moral melodrama involving a young district attorney (Andy Garcia) who takes on a career-making case only to uncover his father's possible involvement in pervasive police corruption. Balancing personal ethics and political compromise in a high-wire act of power and its abuse, Lumet relies on dialogue and superb performances (including those by Ron Leibman, Richard Dreyfuss and Lena Olin) to achieve a devastating impact. The script (based on the novel Tainted Evidence by Robert Daley) is too smart and Lumet's direction too sure-footed to fall back on the black-and-white exploits of conventional criminals and their crimes. The movie's moral framework (like that of Lumet's earlier film Q&A) is more realistic, dealing in the grey areas between right and wrong where misdeeds can arise from the best intentions. At the centre of Garcia's dilemma is his father, a seasoned New York cop played so convincingly by Ian Holm that you'd never guess the actor was British. Although it received mixed reviews when released in 1997, Night Falls on Manhattan ranks among Lumet's finest films. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com