DVD reviews: Racing the block

In this week's DVD releases Bruce Willis is back in action and a Palestinian film about a pair of would-be suicide bombers offers chilling insights about life in the West Bank...

16 Blocks
Warner Home Video, 12A £18.99
Review: Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
***
In 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis supposedly plays against type as Jack Mosley, an ageing, gone-to-seed alcoholic cop assigned the ordinary task of escorting a motormouth witness (Mos Def) to the courthouse, 16 blocks away. But Bruce only ever plays Bruce. So, when "dirty cops" threaten to stop him testifying, our man in a vest digs out his lop-sided grin and "I'm looking at you through napalm" squint and gets on with providing us with another solid, if unremarkable and forgettable action flick.

Lacking almost any sense of urgency - despite the ticking courtroom clock and implausible twists at every turn - the mismatched buddy act with sympathetic comedy sidekick Mos Def never really clicks either; all the more noticeable given it's assuredly brought to the screen by Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner. But if Lethal Weapon this mos def ain't, it's a DVD you can happily munch takeaway pizza to - then throw away with the box.
Extras: Alternative ending, deleted scenes, commentary by Richard Donner and writer Richard Wenk.

The Exterminating Angel
Arrow Films, 12, £15.99
Review: Nina Caplan
****
Outrageously, this is the first outing for Luis Buñuel's typically vicious 1962 satire The Exterminating Angel and it doesn't even have any extras. A group of dinner party guests - bourgeois, of course, since the middle classes were Buñuel's favourite scapegoat - attend a dinner party, then find they cannot leave. There's no reason for their incarceration, nor any escape, and their social masks soon crumble under the pressure of sharing one room under such peculiar circumstances. It's an oblique way to express the Spanish director's favourite obsessions: the tyranny of ideology; the savage beneath the facade; the general contemptibility of the middle classes - but an absolutely riveting one, with creepy touches of Surrealism. Now give us the Special Edition.
Extras: None.

Crash: The Director's Cut
Pathé Distribution, 15, £15.99
Review: Nina Caplan
****
Paul Haggis's superb film Crash was a surprise best film Oscar-winner but a righteous one. A complex interlocking drama about racism in LA, it starts from the premise that people need to make contact so badly, they will clash out of desperation, then proceeds to throw a variety of city lives together. There's spoilt beauty Thandie Newton, put-upon cop Don Cheadle and steely politician Brendan Fraser as well as a frustrated Persian shopkeeper and a couple of young black carjackers who provide this powerful but bleak film's only light moments on racial discrimination. But these are the only characters who fall into the cliché trap: Haggis ambitiously attempts to show both sides of everyone, even racist cop Matt Dillon, and pretty much succeeds.
Extras: Director's cut, Haggis intro, Haggis and Cheadle commentary, featurettes and making-of doc.

Paradise Now
Warner Home Video, 15, £18.99
Review: Siobhan Murphy
****
Lifelong friends Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) live in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank. They have volunteered to become suicide bombers and one night they learn their time has come. Paradise Now, the first Palestinian film to be nominated for an Oscar, follows what happens as they prepare for and try to carry out their attack. When the wired-up pair are accidentally separated on their way to Tel Aviv and the action is postponed, both have a chance to reflect on what they have agreed and whether it is really the best course of action. For anyone who cares about the desperate plight of the Palestinian people, there are few insights here and the arguments for and against violent resistance are expressed in a didactic manner. But moments such as Said's explanation for why he must carry through his mission, chillingly delivered with grim intensity, show movingly how the occupation robs people of much more than just land.
Extras: None.