DVDs of the week

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Tell No One: You couldn't ask for much more in a thriller

Tell No One

Spiderman 3

Daft Punk's Electroma

Comdedic political documentary: Taking Liberties

Joe Rogan: Live

This week's top DVDs include the twisted tale Tell No One, Spiderman 3, a Daft Punk collection entitled Electroma and US comic Joe Rogan performing stand-up.

Tell No One
Revolver Entertainment, 15, £15.99
****

It may have been this summer's The Beat That My Heart Skipped - a French sleeper hit that came out of nowhere - but at the time, I had my suspicions about Tell No One. Were we overhyping it just because Hollywood hadn't produced a decent thriller for months? In fact, what's astonishing is that Hollywood didn't get to it first. Based on the US best-seller by Harlan Coben, it's the twisted tale of childhood sweethearts Alex (FranÁois Cluzet) and Margot (Marie-JosÈe Croze, pictured with Cluzet), who are attacked, apparently by the local serial killer. Margot is killed, Alex survives. Eight years later, Alex receives an anonymous e-mail containing live webcam of Margot at a train station. The message reads 'Tell no one. They're watching'. Is she really alive? Is Alex really a grieving innocent? That you can rewardingly re-watch this whodunnit once you know whodidit is testimony to the storytelling skill of actor/ director Guillaume Canet as much as Coben. This has everything from intensely intimate family drama to a wicked cross-town set-piece chase. Plus a French-speaking Kristin Scott Thomas as the lesbian lover of Marina Hands (the fit new Lady Chatterley) - what more could you ask of a thriller?

Extras: A making-of documentary; deleted scenes; interviews; short film by Canet. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

Spiderman 3
Sony pictures home entertainment, 12, £22.99
***

Unfairly battered at the time for giving what, at a bumnumbing 140min, was basically just too much bang for your buck, there's no doubt Sam Raimi's colourful web of throwaway fun suffers by being visually squished into a small screen. The strength of this knowing trilogy has been the concentration on the human core beneath the special effects: on the endearing geekiness of Spidey alter-ego Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and his affection for his old aunt and uncle. That heart beats fainter here beneath the weight of a teetering kerplunk of a plot: Peter's meant to turn 'bad' after variously being infected by some kind of black alien space fungus, facing a new baddie made of sand (Thomas Haden Church) who also happened to kill his uncle, being accused of cheating on his girlfriend, being sacked from his job as a news photographer, being... well the list spins ever on. The film's main fault, though, is the Batman And Robin syndrome of too many silly villains, and way too much time.

Extras: More than six hours' worth including two commentaries, six making-of featurettes and a Snow Patrol video.

Daft Punk's Electroma
Beacuse.TV, 15, £14.99
***

Whether you're a Daft Punk fan or not actually makes little difference as to whether you'll enjoy this, the duo's directorial debut. Whereas Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter's previous films DAFT: A Story About Dogs, Androids, Firemen And Tomatoes, and Interstella 5555 were essentially stylish vehicles for their music, Electroma features neither the pair nor any of their music. Set against a decidedly eerie soundtrack of Curtis Mayfield, Brian Eno and Haydn, it recalls the existentialist road movies of the 1970s with two robots hiking across a desert to who-knows-where after being run out of town following an ill-fated attempt at becoming human.

With slow sweeping pans of two actors (chosen for their mechanised deportment) trailing through endless salt flats, no human faces and zero dialogue, this is hardly the stuff of high-action thrills. Still, the interaction between the robots is surprisingly touching, while a series of dazzling set pieces makes Electroma a striking, if flawed, film.

Extras: Limited edition 42-page stills book. Nadine McBay

Taking Liberties
Revolver Entertainment, 15, £15.99
****

If Michael Moore gets your goat but you like a bit of provocative government bashing, then give this cheeky home-grown 'bit of politics' a go. Will removing our right to protest outside Parliament really deter a suicide bomber from blowing themselves up outside it? Did you know the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Act effectively abolishes 'habeas corpus'? The topics tackled in Chris Atkins's revelatory, impressively well-researched doc will have you throwing up your hands at the telly and debating in the pub or at the dinner table for days afterwards. Atkins notably selects the more cuddly, middleclass, well-spoken protester to get his effective 'be a citizen' message across - there are a lot of Home Counties grannies here. It all brings home the irony that though we send in troops to supposedly defend democracy and freedom of speech in Iraq, we're insidiously eroding those very privileges back home. Jollied along by zippy animation and typical Mark Thomas stunts, Taking Liberties stokes plenty of laughs while cranking up our political paranoia.

Extras: Making-of; director commentary; extended interviews with Boris Johnson, Mark Thomas and Andrew Gilligan; additional demo/protest footage. LI-Z

Joe Rogan: Live
VDI Entertainment, 18, £12.99
***

Although Britain has seen the odd live show from US stand-up Joe Rogan, he's probably best known on these shores for presenting reality TV show Fear Factor, and commentating for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Given those telly credits, it comes as no surprise that he comes from the Bill Hicks/Sam Kinison school of fire and brimstone comedy. Rogan isn't quite as charismatic or as tantalising as those two comics but he has some fine material in this hour-long gig, filmed in Arizona in 2006. Osama Bin Laden's phone usage, George Bush's stupidity, smoking pot and the battle of the sexes are the sorts of things that twitch on his radar but he's at his best when having what amounts to an existential crisis. 'I think human beings are just a complicated form of bacteria,' he declares. A man worth listening to.

Extras: Documentary.
Sharon Lougher

 

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