DVD reviews: London Boulevard | Skyline

Published on Thursday 17 March 2011 19:14

London Boulevard EV, £19.99

Though we need another London gangster film like we need a bullet in the head, low expectations, a strangely anachronistic soundtrack and some engaging turns from Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley and David Thewlis make London Boulevard a passable entry into a subgenre in disrepute. The directorial debut of The Departed's Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan, London Boulevard also benefits from his outsider perspective. His reverence for 1960s British cinema, right down to the Blow Up-esque use of the Yardbirds on the soundtrack every five minutes, gives the film an off-kilter energy. This helps distract from the abortive allusions to Sunset Boulevard that are implied by the title, if not the plot, which in truth comes across more like an amalgam of Layer Cake and Performance, and not always in a good way.

Still, despite a wavering accent, Farrell remains an engaging lead, more so now that his youthful good looks are showing the first signs of deserting him. Knightley is also servicable as the reclusive movie star whom Farrell is hired to protect, and Thewlis chews the scenery in an entertaining way as the last drugged-out member of her entourage. No prizes for originality, but not the worst gangster film made on these shores in recent years.

Skyline

Momentum, 19.99

Alien invasion movie Skyline won't win any awards for originality either, and sadly there's little else to recommend this anonymous, cut-price effects movie. A group of irritating friends and neighbours are banded together in a luxury penthouse while bad-ass extra-terrestrials hover outside their windows dispensing a budget-saving lightshow until FX boffins-turned-directors Colin and Greg Straus (Alien vs Predator: Requiem) are allowed to unleash the full force of their generic, tentacled brain-sucking xenomorphs. At this point the film transforms from being annoying and dull to being noisy and dull as it becomes ever harder to discern which C-list TV actor is going to be killed next – or indeed has just been killed. Along with the recent Battle: Los Angeles, Skyline merely proves that District 9 is a lot more difficult to rip off than previously imagined, because while its effects are replicable in an age of limitless digital wizardry, deploying them in the service of a story you actually care about still takes a bit of work, effort and ingenuity.

• To order any of these DVDs, call The Scotsman on 01634 832789.