This week's DVD reviews

Unknown White Male tells the bizarre story about a man struck with a rare case of amnesia while Tony Curtis stars in the complete series of The Persuaders! Catch up with the latest DVD releases here...

Unknown White Male
Shooting People Films,12, £15.99
****
"Extraordinary" is an overused word but applies perfectly to Unknown White Male, a story so bizarre it has been condemned as a hoax. In 2002, a young, admittedly suspiciously photogenic, Briton woke up on the New York subway and realised he not only didn't know where he was, he didn't know who he was either. Struck with a rare case of amnesia, he can remember nothing of his life as Doug Bruce, a successful 32-year-old stockbroker-turned-photographer. Now that sounds like a movie. And indeed this documentary, shot by one of the many friends whom Doug no longer recognises, grips you like a thriller. But Doug's emotional blankness is almost alienating - moments such as seeing an ocean or snow for the first time lack a fake Hollywood magic. It's also a peppy philosophical inquiry into the nature of identity. If we are determined by our memories and experiences, what happens when they are stripped away? Do we become 'pure us'? Or a whole other person? Fascinating stuff.
Extras: Doug today; filmmakers' response to 'hoax' controversy; extra interviews with friends and scientists; Baroness Warnock on philosophical issues surrounding amnesia. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

The Persuaders! The Complete Series Special Edition
Network DVD, PG, £59.99
****
The genius of 1970s superglam TV series The Persuaders! is in the chemistry between its playboy leads. Tony Curtis is Danny Wilde, a wisecrackin' rough diamond from da Bronx turned Wall Street millionaire. Roger Moore is Lord Brett Sinclair, a suave, English public school toff. Despite being opposites - Curtis drives a Ferrari and wears a battered bomber jacket, Moore (pre-Bond) prefers an Aston Martin and sports a peppermint cream cravat and tight shirt combo so flagrant it'd make Larry Grayson blush - together they must fight crime. And right wrongs and bed the avalanche of fit babes that wiggle across their path. Shot in glorious, split-screen addicted Tawdrycolor, you don't need the exclamation mark to alert you to the fact that this is a whole lot of action-packed fun. Mix yourself a chilled Creole Scream (shaken, one olive) and settle down for a nine-disc love-in.
Extras: Documentary, interviews, commentaries from writers, leads and directors, all four feature-film versions and trailers. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

Love + Hate
Drakes Avenue, 15, £19.99
***
Writer/director Dominic Savage's debut Love + Hate is a well-meaning, wellacted race drama that is ultimately just too simplistic to satisfy. In a Northern town, teenage Adam (Tom Hudson), who unthinkingly subscribes to his family's racist views, finds himself attracted to Naseema (Samina Awan). She's a Muslim whose father is, in his own way, as intolerant as Adam's Pakibashing brother, while Naseema's brother is keen to curb her untraditional freedom - despite secretly sleeping with a white girl himself. Savage's film is excellent at evoking the bewilderment, insecurities and hormones that afflict teenagers of any race but his script is clunky and too reliant on coincidence. And Savage fails to give any real sense of why Naseema's family behave as they do - which, given current attitudes to Muslims, seems a grave mistake.
Extras: Commentaries and making-of feature. Nina Caplan

Billy Liar
Optimum Home Entertainment, PG, £12.99
****
Keith Waterhouse may now be bestknown as the author of booze-soaked journalistic homage Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, but back in the 1950s it was novel Billy Liar that made his name. The story of a young man who uses fiction to compensate for his lack of opportunities chimed neatly with the Angry Young Man generation. In the film version, Tom Courtenay is Billy, a vendor of funeral furnishings who finds lies easier than rebellion. Billy has two fiancées and a fictional job as TV gag-writer; telling the truth, like achieving the freedom embodied by Liz (wonderful Julie Christie), would mean action and Billy can only manage reaction. Made in 1963, this was Christie's breakthrough role and, like her, John Schlesinger's beautifully shot film has aged remarkably well.
Extras: None. Nina Caplan