DVDs of the week

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This week's DVD releases include the Oscar nominated The Departed, the sequel to 1994 nerd-a-thon Clerks and, the making-of Sting's 2006 Lute album.

The Departed
Entertainment In Video, 18, £23.99
*****
Jack's back! And so is Marty. The Departed is not exactly a departure for Messrs Nicholson and Scorsese but both are on sensational form in this magnificent retelling of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. So, it's back to the mean streets for Scorsese, Boston this time, where one-time-bum-made-good Leonardo DiCaprio (excellent) goes undercover in the underworld. Meanwhile, cleancut Mob puppy Matt Damon (a revelation) is a mole in the force. Tense, brutally violent and consummately orchestrated, this isn't just a movie, it's an artful symphony. That Nicholson doesn't blast everyone else off screen with his sleazy Mob mentor is a tribute to the strength of Scorsese's finest film since Casino. If Marty doesn't get an Oscar this time, the Academy members deserve to swim with the fishes.
Extras: Sadly, no director's commentary but a separate disc of well-researched, quality featurettes, plus a Scorsese on Scorsese feature. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

Clerks II
Paramount Home Entertainment, 18, £19.99
****
Kevin Smith was never going to outdo the charming, no-budget nerd-a-thon that was 1994's Clerks but this sequel - shamefully filmed in colour - is a worthy, if slightly cheesier, follow-up. The updates work well: the scrummy Rosario Dawson does an ace job pretending she's in love with downtrodden non-looker Dante (Brian O'Halloran), while Trevor Fehrman's naive Elias is a great comic wall for Randal (Jeff Anderson) to kick against. The latest dead-end job setting, a burger joint, makes a tasty replacement for the original Quick Stop, and the geek chat flicks nicely from Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings. But Smith has kept the important bits the same: Jay and Silent Bob still have their patch, while main players Dante and Randal slip back into their double-act repartee like the last decade never happened. Crucially, the movie retains its spiritual heart as a hymn to slacker-culture America.
Extras: Smith knows his fans to a T - this is packed with extras, including commentaries, deleted scenes, blooper reel, Easter eggs and featurettes (including one entitled A Closer Look At Interspecies Erotica). Sharon Lougher

Accepted
Universal Pictures Video, 12, £15.99
***
What do you do if your parents are desperate for you to go to college but your mailbox contains nothing but rejections? Why, er, set up your own college, of course... That's the shamelessly implausible premise here at any rate, and Bartleby Gaines's South Harmon Institute of Technology (rest assured, no one misses the chance to exploit the acronym) unintentionally flourishes to accommodate the area's misfits and no-hopers, keen on spending their days chilling out and pursuing their dreams at their own pace, while simultaneously trying to fend off the neighbouring rival college intent on shutting them down. Inevitably, this is strewn with teen movie clichÈs - but in among the bikinis, half pipes, electric guitars and disco balls is a likable low-key cast and a 'be what you want to be' message that is naively heartwarming. A watered-down Ferris Bueller for the American Pie generation.
Extras: None. SL

Sting: The Journey & The Labyrinth
Deutsche Grammophon, £14.99
**
In the same week that The Police re-form, Sting releases the making-of DVD of his 2006 lute album, Songs From The Labyrinth. Academics are drafted into his palatial sitting room to discuss 16th-century madrigal composer John Dowland's life. This is interspliced with Sting singing accompanied by Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov. It's weirdly more like an estate agent's pitch for the singer's Wiltshire estate than a music DVD: we see them sit first in the midst of a labyrinth, then by the boathouse, then posing next to the summer house. At one surreal point, Sting is accompanied in the four-part harmony by three clones of himself.
Early music specialists should look away now. This self-indulgent film does nothing for Dowland. When the specialist Stile Antico Choir are eventually brought in, the chasm between Sting's forced style and their precision says it all.
Extras: Rehearsal footage, solo by Edin Karamazov and an eight-song CD. Karen Stretch

Hawk The Slayer
Network DVD, PG, £14.99
*
One of those true 'cult' gems so magnificently atrocious, it deserves either a slightly awed full marks - or a hard-hearted one. This special edition of the 1980 British sword and sorcery epic would sweep the board in any 'so bad it's good' award bash. It's a fable of two brothers locked in mortal conflict: bad one, Voltan (Jack Palance, oh, how the mighty have fallen) and his heroic sibling, Hawk (John Terry, aka Jack from Lost's alcoholic dad). Its '19th-century' sets are as authentic as a cheap Las Vegas dungeon massage parlour. The synth score is sub-porn, while the dialogue is so dire, it sounds like it's dubbed. It isn't; maybe it's just the actors stifling their groans? A classic - of sorts.
Extras: Making-of and behindthescenes footage. LI-Z

 

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