DVD reviews: From bubble to bust

This week's releases follow Enron's execs from bubble to bust, Chow Yun-Fat stars in John Woo's all-action flick Another Tomorrow II, while Tristan & Isolde drips its way onto DVD...

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 12, £19.99
Review: Nina Caplan
****
It's pretty smart to rejig a company's accounts so that they're based on future hopes rather than current facts, effectively allowing the institution to write itself a series of blank cheques. Alex Gibney's doc Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room tracks the execs from bubble to bust via insider interviews, corporate videos, re-enactments and news clips. It's a fascinating study in hubris, not to mention immorality: these guys were still trying to wrest control of the company pension scheme from their employees while quietly offloading stock in the full knowledge that Enron's game was nearly up. And, of course, crime paid (to the tune of $1billion) while the workers were left with nothing. Ain't that always the way.
Extras: Director's commentary, making-of featurette, deleted scenes.

Ballets Russes
Revolver Entertainment, PG, £19.99
Review: Nina Caplan
***
Clever Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, and lucky us: in a few years' time, Ballets Russes would be unfilmable. The two directors' history of the Russian ballet company, founded by Diaghilev in 1909, makes ample, if unimaginative, use of those ballerinas still living, tracking the company's glorious rise and the bitter battles that broke out after Diaghilev died, culminating in the company's split into two rival organisations and painful demise in the 1960s. The archive footage is wonderful, even if ballet isn't your thing, and the politics - Ku Klux Klan members targeting the company's first black dancer - is an interesting aside, although Geller and Goldfine aren't interested enough to pursue this angle. Which is odd, given their obvious interest in history: one of the film's biggest flaws is the stolidly chronological trajectory, which makes a plodding contrast to the soaring dance footage.
Extras: None.

A Better Tomorrow II
Contender, 18, £16.99
Review: Sharon Lougher
****
Legendary Hong Kong movie A Better Tomorrow was the passport to Hollywood for its director John Woo and super-cool star Chow Yun-Fat. But fans of that seminal work should fear not that Chow's character popped his clogs last time around, because here he returns in this 1987 sequel, A Better Tomorrow II, conveniently playing his twin brother, and with trademark semiautomatic in tow. The plot's full of recognisable Woo-isms, Triads, revenge, double-crossings, murder and notions of honour - but forget that: it's the explosive action that makes this one worth watching.
Extras: Trailers, interviews, animated essay.

Tristan & Isolde
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 12, £17.99
Review: Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
**
It's hard to tell what's more drippy about Tristan & Isolde - the murky, damp landscape or the wet romance between its young lovers. After a battle in Cornwall, pouting medieval warrior Tristan (James Franco) - second in line to Britain's throne - floats out to sea, left for dead, only to bob up on the coast of Ireland, Britain's sworn enemy, and be brought back to life (boo) by pouting Irish princess Isolde (Sophia Myles). Together they yearn only to make lots of little pouts together. The big hitch? She's already married. Worse, she's married to his loyal mentor King Marke (Rufus Sewell). "Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Tristan and Isolde," reads the tagline, but this is hardly epic stuff. Predictable down to the last Celtic pipe, it's hard to believe anyone would opt for the sappy Franco over the superior Mr Sewell.
Extras: Audio commentaries, making-of doc, We Belong Together music video from Gavin DeGraw.