Review
DVD RELEASES
We look at this week’s DVDs from super villains in Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay — to the bizarrely optimistic Brigsby Bear
Other new releases include Accident Man, Female Fight Club and My Own Private Idaho: Premium Collection
Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay (15)
Out Apr 16
The bad guys are pitted against the bad guys in this gory animation spin-off from the Margot Robbie feature film.
The top secret Task Force X of six villains - Deadshot (this time voiced by Christian Slater rather than Will Smith), Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Killer Frost, Copperhead and Bronze Tiger – are sent on a mission to retrieve an important item in return for shortening their prison time.
5
But they are not the only wrong ‘uns looking for the valuable object (a card which offers a one-use only free pass into heaven) and only one can retrieve it and survive.
★★☆☆☆
Nimmi Maghera-Rakhra
Accident Man (15)
Out Apr 16
Mike Fallon is a chisel-jawed assassin who specialises in hits that look like accidents.
He's part of a hitman's guild chock-full of deadly psychos - but when circumstances pit him against the others, will he break the rules to get revenge?
5
Ray Stevenson (Rome), Ray Parks (Star Wars' Darth Maul) are among the assassins, as is Perry Benson (This Is England) having a hoot as the most unlikely contract killer you'll ever see.
Accident Man trailer starring Scott Adkins and Stu Small
Based on the Toxic comic book strip, this Cockney geezer action comedy gets off to a rip-roaring start as our anti-hero (Scott Adkins) plies his trade inventively - Lock Stock And No Smoking Barrels.
It loses impetus as he abandons his unique talents and it devolves into a martial arts slugfest - but it's joyously tasteless throughout.
★★★☆☆
Jayme Bryla
Brigsby Bear (15)
Out Apr 16
Brought up in a nuclear bunker by a kindly if eccentric couple, James has only two links to the outside world.
One is man of the house Ted (Mark Hamill), who leaves home every day wearing a gas mask to protect him from the toxic air.
5
The other is the VHS-recorded episodes of Brigsby Bear, a Teddy Ruxpin-like animatronic bear who has magical adventures in an 1980s-style kids TV show.
But things are not as they seem and when James, now a 25-year-old manchild, is thrust into the wider world, will his obsession with Brigsby prove to be his downfall or his salvation?
The film's star and co-writer Kyle Mooney - a Saturday Night Live mainstay - brings plenty of oddball charm to James, not dissimilar to Garth from Wayne's World.
But while Brigsby is also a comedy, it's not laugh out loud, more quirky and heartwarming.
Claire Danes and Greg Kinnear give good support but it's Mark Hamill who's the perfect casting for his role.
A man obsessed with a children's television program is the plot for comedy-drama Brigsby Bear
As he said in his most recent Star Wars outing: 'This is not going to go the way you think.'
A bizarre and implausibly optimistic movie it may be - but Brigsby Bear's magic should win you over.
★★★★☆
Jayme Bryla
Female Fight Club (15)
Out now
Not to be confused with the excellent Brad Pitt movie, this is the story of young Bex, a once-famous kickboxer who must train a team of four female fighters to battle their way through an illegal underground kickboxing tournament, in order to win the $150k prize money so that her sister can pay off debts that she owes to some unsavoury characters.
5
A former fighter reluctantly returns to the life she abandoned in order to help her sister survive the sadistic world of illegal fighting in Female Fight Squad
A woefully poor and predictable storyline is accompanied by some below-average acting, and possibly the worst portrayal of a bad guy you've ever seen.
Even a brief appearance from Dolph Lundgren can't save this movie from being KO’d.
★☆☆☆☆
Lee Saunders
MOST READ IN FILM
My Own Private Idaho - Premium Collection (15)
Out now
River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves' 1991 cult classic comes in for the premium treatment, with DVD, Blu-Ray and digital downloads in one box, accompanied by photocards.
5
The movie itself is the story of two rent boys from very different backgrounds - Mike (Phoenix) is a damaged kid searching for his mother, while Scott (Reeves) is a rich kid who's just slumming it until his trust fund comes through.
Follow the journey of self discovery of two Portland hustlers in My Own Private Idaho
With cod-Shakespearean dialogue, and Gus Van Sant's choppy, dreamlike editing, it's unconventional to say the least.
But there are some nice visual ideas, some touching moments and it's a chance to see Phoenix at his most James Dean-like, not long before his equally untimely demise.
★★☆☆☆
Jayme Bryla
Topics