"Actor: Tracey Ellis"

• The Last Of The Mohicans | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £9.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (90.09%)   |  RRP £18.99

  The Last of the Mohicans is a large-scale adventure set during the colonial conflicts between Britain and France 20 years before the American War of Independence. Based loosely on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper, but actually inspired by director Michael (Manhunter, Heat) Mann's boyhood love of the 1936 film of the same name, this is rousing, romantic stuff. As "Hawkeye", a white raised by the last of the Mohican tribe, Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a performance which, had he followed it up, could have established him as an action hero for the 1990s and beyond. Despite an under-written role Madeline Stowe convinces as the heroine. The remaining cast are uniformly excellent. Filmed amid the spectacular mountains, rivers and forests of North Carolina by Mann's regular cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, the film is a visual joy, while Trevor Jones' majestic, spine-tingling score (with additional music by Randy Edleman) is one of the finest of the decade. Taking time to establish the motives of British and French colonists and the various native tribes, as well as the varying opinions and characters within these groupings, Mann offers much greater balance and complexity than The Patriot (2000), yet never looses sight of the object here: telling a stirring yarn laced with bold action set pieces and passionate romance. On the DVD: The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 image is a massive improvement over VHS, but still shows considerable grain in many scenes, possibly a result of the film being shot in low, natural light and containing many very dark sequences. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very powerful, though little use is made of the rear channels, and in some scenes the sound effects all but drown out the dialogue. Isolated scores are usually only found on feature-packed special editions, so the inclusion here is a welcome surprise--and testament its popularity. The only other extra is an anamorphic 2.35:1 presentation of the immensely stirring theatrical trailer. --Gary S Dalkin

• This Boy's Life | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Robert De Niro gets top billing, but young Leonardo DiCaprio is the revelation of This Boy's Life, an astute, often painful drama of growing up in the 1950s Pacific Northwest, based on the autobiographical novel by Tobias Wolff. DiCaprio plays Tobias, a good kid with a bad boy streak but an unwavering love for his divorced mother (Ellen Barkin). "I want to be a better boy", he promises from under a greasy pompadour, and tries to prove it when she marries single father Dwight (DeNiro), a bully who parents through intimidation and humiliation. A pre-Titanic DiCaprio is magnetic in his first starring role, full of anger, hope and confusion as he drifts back to juvenile delinquency and his intensity gives the true story of survival and triumph its charge. DeNiro is frightening and pathetic as Dwight, and Dwight's youngest daughter is played by future star and vampire slayer Eliza Dushku. --Sean Axmaker

• Bad Girls - Series 2 | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Few television dramas of recent years have managed to combine quality and popularity as successfully as Bad Girls. Series two of the women's-prison drama offers essentially more of the same, but the formula is so well honed that it would be churlish to complain. The main characters and storylines are still there, with the relationship that began between Nikki and Helen (Mandana Jones and Simone Lahbib) at the end of the first series brought eloquently and stylishly to centre stage--a result of both superb writing and performance. The show is given fresh impetus by the constant introduction of new characters. The resulting plot lines see the growing influence of the superb Yyvonne, the unhinged prison officer Di and a new wing governor Karen Betts added to the equation, all with explosive results. The mixture of humour and drama is, as ever, played to perfection.On the DVD: Having set an impressive standard with the DVD release of series one, Bad Girls continues to lead the field for television drama releases. Again the packaging of the four-disc set is handy but extremely stylish and comes with a whole series of extras. The documentary this time follows the cast on a promotional trip to South Africa and there are two galleries of photographs, deleted scenes, production and cast notes and a mass of outtakes that beg the question how they ever actually managed to make one programme, let alone the 13 included here, without the whole cast convulsing with laughter. --Phil Udell

• Bad Girls - Series 4 | DVD | (09/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  All sixteen fully uncut episodes of the fourth season of conflicts crises chaos and camaraderie from inside HMP Larkhall...

• Percy | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Something very vital has been lost! When Edwin Antony (Hywel Bennett) has an accident and wakes up in hospital the last thing he is expecting is to find someone else's 'Percy' down below! Doctors successfully replace his member with that of the dead man but refuse to tell him the full story of the organ's origin. So Edwin begins a search which takes him to the philanderer's wife - and also to his many many girlfriends...