"Director: Kjell Sundvall"

• ABBA - The Definitive Collection | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  ABBA were one of the first pop groups to exploit the promotional video as a vehicle for publicising their music across the globe. ABBA--The Definitive Collection provides an audio-visual timeline of how their promos developed over a 10-year period from the mid-1970s to the early 80s. The first ABBA videos were simple recordings of the band miming to their songs in a studio ("Waterloo" and "Ring Ring"); then, for "Mamma Mia" and "SOS", the style was replaced by something more adventurous, focusing on the four grouped together in rival pairs. As technology and the group evolved so did their promo films, with more recent examples shot on videotape and incorporating post-production special effects and outdoor locations ("One Of Us" and "Head over Heels"). Director Lasse Hallstrom has since made the transition from these relatively low-budget vehicles to Hollywood success with Chocolat and The Shipping News. If ABBA’s early efforts look a little primitive compared to big-budget modern music promos, the songs themselves now sound even better than ever, having been digitally re-mastered in 24-bit format. As well as featuring the digitally re-mastered promos for the majority of their single releases, exclusive previously unreleased material is also incorporated here, such as the extended original mix of "On and On and On". On the DVD: ABBA--The Definitive Collection on DVD squeezes in all 30 videos, plus five bonus tracks which include the promos for the Spanish-language versions of "I Have a Dream", "Happy New Year" and "When All is Said and Done". The video for the never released "When I Kissed the Teacher" is also included, too, as is a camp recording of "Dancing Queen" filmed at a gala tribute for Sweden’s King and Queen. The 20-minute picture gallery is an excellent and comprehensive photographic record of the group through the years. Background information about all of the material, is discussed in the accompanying biographical booklet.--John Galilee

• False Trail | DVD | (18/02/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's been fifteen years since Erik was forced to leave the Norrland Police Department. Since then he has become the National Murder Commission's best interrogator. When Erik's boss orders him back to his home town to solve a brutal murder, he hesitantly returns as the thought of going back stirs up unpleasant memories. What at first appears to be a simple murder soon proves to be something much more complicated and disturbing.

• The Hunters (Jägarna) | DVD | (10/12/2012) from £9.48   |  Saving you £5.50 (73.43%)   |  RRP £12.99

  After working for the Stockholm police for several years, Eric (Rolf Lassgard) returns to his home village to live with his younger brother Leif and work in the local police department. At first welcomed home with open arms, Erik soon forges a path of estrangement and destruction when he single-handedly sets about solving an on-going case concerning the slaughter of local reindeer, a problem that the town cops have been plainly ignoring. When Eric learns that his brother is involved events take a further turn for the worse and violence erupts in the village as the closed-community unites against Erik’s quest for truth and, ultimately, justice.

• False Trail | Blu Ray | (18/02/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  It's been fifteen years since Erik was forced to leave the Norrland Police Department. Since then he has become the National Murder Commission's best interrogator. When Erik's boss orders him back to his home town to solve a brutal murder, he hesitantly returns as the thought of going back stirs up unpleasant memories. What at first appears to be a simple murder soon proves to be something much more complicated and disturbing.

• The Last Contract | DVD | (11/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Made in 1997 and directed by Kjell Sundvall, The Last Contract is based around the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme in 1986, who was shot while walking home from the cinema. Palmer's murderer or murderers were never caught and his mysterious assassination has been largely forgotten by the world. This speculative and fictional thriller suggests that Palme was the victim of a right-wing conspiracy, with even the Americans tacitly and indirectly involved, worried as they were about Palme's ambitions to turn Scandinavia into a nuclear-free zone. Mikael Persbrandt plays Roger Nyman, a Swedish police officer transferred to the Fraud Squad who discovers that an assassin responsible for a killing in Johannesburg is now contracted to kill Palme. However, his superiors take him off the case when he presents them with his findings and tries to follow up the case alone. Fearful, isolated, enraged and increasingly estranged from his family, he contrasts sharply with Michael Kitchen's suave but coolly lethal British contract killer. Though Palme's fate is foreknown, The Last Contract nonetheless succeeds in pulling you into its maelstrom of intrigue until virtually the final frame. --David Stubbs