Latest DVD releases

All the latest DVD and box set releases reviewed
Steve Morrisey27 April 2012

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Paramount, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

For M:I4 Tom Cruise deploys two secret weapons – the comedy of support player Simon Pegg and the Pixar experience of director Brad Bird. The result is a breezy 007 clone with stunts straight out of The Incredibles. Breathtaking entertainment.

The Wicker Tree (Anchor Bay, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Or The Wicker Man: The Revenge, with Honeysuckle Weeks on Britt Ekland duty (yes, boys, breasts) in a remarkably 1970s-flavoured bookend to the cult original, directed again by Robin Hardy. More interesting and less awful than you might think.

The Iron Lady (Pathe, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

The formidable Meryl Streep plays the formidable Mrs Thatcher both in old age and in her handbag-swinging prime in a film that opts for poignant human drama rather than score-settling or hero-worship. What's the point of that, you might ask.

Lifeboat (Eureka, cert PG, Blu-ray/DVD)

Hitchcock's 1944 contribution to the war effort is set entirely in a lifeboat presided over by a mink-clad Tallulah Bankhead. It's typically mischievous, deliberately stagey, plays with the whole notion of propaganda and, newly restored, is ready to grip all over again.

Into the Abyss (Revolver, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

Add this to Werner Herzog's run of remarkable recent documentaries, a quizzical appraisal of capital punishment which logs the effects of a murder on all parties, most notably from the point of view of the killer on Death Row.

Loser (Kaleidoscope, cert 15, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray/DVD)

Looking like a Christopher Guest mock-doc (it isn't), this semi-successful, semi-improv comedy about Vegas poker players stars Woody Harrelson and Cheryl Hines, and features Werner Herzog playing a demented character called simply The German – worth it for him alone.

Gang Story (Entertainment One, cert 15, DVD)

Gitanes-wreathed French thriller following a mob in their 1970s heyday of Citroen DS getaway cars, and 40 years on, still iron hard, creased, tan and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Scorsese en francais, to some extent.

Box Sets

Braquo: Season 1 (Arrow, cert 18, DVD £19.9)

Betty Blue's Jean-Hugues Anglade is the star of FX's contribution to the current vogue for subtitled policiers, an exciting violent drama about hardball Parisian detectives directed by former cop Olivier Marchal.

The Tim Burton Collection (Warner, cert 18, DVD £59.99)

Wot, no Scissorhands? No, but you get two Batmans, Mars Attacks, Beetlejuice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Pee Wee's Big Adventure and a Corpse Bride. No Alice in Wonderland either, thankfully.

Suits Season 1 (Universal, cert 12, DVD £29.99)

A buddy drama, a legal drama, a drama in which a key character is an outsider with extraordinary innate talent, Suits rises above formulae thanks to deft comic playing by Gabriel Macht and Patrick J Adams and some rather natty one-liners.

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