A documentary film by Bruno Monsaingeon devoted to the 20th century's greatest violinists, The Art of Violin really cannot be faulted. The same, incidentally, can also be said of the similar volumes which cover the piano and singing, so there's never been a better time to collect a personal audio-visual archive of some wonderful historical performers. The added dimension provided by the painstakingly collected film material (here featuring no fewer than 20 outstanding soloists) is of course of exceptional value when observing violin technique, and the diversity of approaches presented here in loving detail is in itself a subject for endless comparison. The material mixes archive performance footage, much of which one might never have dreamed existed, with interviews and documentary commentary. However, rather than turn the project into a museum piece, Monsaingeon includes contributions from contemporary figures such as Perlman and, shrewdly, Hilary Hahn--not that there'd be any doubt of the huge relevance of the material to any contemporary player or lover of the repertoire. An absolute must. --Roger Thomas

Poorly received on its theatrical release, The Art of War is a film which deserves a second look. Plot-wise it's a routinely complicated thriller full of double-crosses and sudden shifts of perspective, as Wesley Snipes, secret fixer for the UN, tries to find out who killed the Chinese Ambassador to stop a trade pact and what it is that interpreter Marie Matiko knows that means people are trying to kill her. There are good performances here--Donald Sutherland as a Secretary General who takes good care not to know what is done in the name of peace, Anne Archer as Snipes' power-dressed controller, and Maury Chaykin as a world-weary FBI man who finds himself dragged around New York in Snipes' high-speed wake--but what is memorable is the look of the film. Presenting a New York of building sites and mirrored apartment buildings and rain on glass in twilight, contemporary techno-noir has never been quite so coherently imagined and set.

On the DVD: This is a film which comes into its own in widescreen and on DVD simply because its visual aspect is most of the point. This disc is not generous with features, simply providing scene access and the theatrical trailer, which makes rather more reference to Sun Tzu's classic of military strategy than the film ever bothers to. However, its combination of Dolby Sound and 2.35:1 widescreen ratio plays to the movie's strengths. --Roz Kaveney

This is one of those Hollywood remakes of a European hit in which one can visualize a committee of studio executives sitting around and saying, "Okay, we know what made the original film unique and different and fun. How can we make that same movie and do exactly the opposite?" For-hire director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) took La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson's undeniably sexy, original, and kitschy French film about a female assassin, and translated it into The Assassin, a calculating, mechanistic American thriller with no distinctive style. Bridget Fonda gamely plays the willowy street punk who becomes a high-society killer, but once that provocative irony is in place, the movie is pretty much a series of by-the-numbers action set pieces. Until, that is, Dermot Mulroney shows up as a love interest; but even that twist can't save this film. You're much better off with the original, subtitles and all. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, production notes, theatrical trailer, optional French and Spanish soundtracks, and optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

The intense thriller The Assignment is a work of fiction with a factual basis. Aidan Quinn stars as Annibal Ramirez, an American naval officer with a striking resemblance to real-life international terrorist Carlos "the Jackal" Sanchez, the scourge of innocent people all over the world in the 1970s and 80s. Mistaken for Sanchez by the Israeli Mossad, Ramirez is arrested but subsequently recruited by the Mossad and the CIA to pose as Sanchez and set him up as a traitor to his underwriters. Ramirez leaves his family, receives training in all aspects of Sanchez's life, and is pulled into the netherworld of terrorism and espionage. Director Christian Duguay (Screamers) wisely emphasises character growth over obligatory action, drawing compelling portraits of an American intelligence official (Donald Sutherland) preoccupied with Sanchez; his Israeli counterpart (Ben Kingsley) and Ramirez himself, a man whose identity has merged with a monster's. --Tom Keogh

Based on a French film, The Associate is about a lady impersonating a fictitious man created to control the chauvinistic Wall Street, when she quits her job after being overtaken to a promotion by a black associate.

An intriguingly creepy premise but failed execution marks The Astronaut's Wife, a stylish and ultimately bland thriller about a pretty, young woman whose pretty, young astronaut husband comes back from his most recent space mission a little... odd. Before that fated space trip, Spencer (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charlize Theron) were a sunny, happy couple with matching blonde hairdos and a predilection for romping in the sack from extremely clever camera angles. However, after a communications blackout brings Spencer and his partner back down to earth prematurely, things are a little... peculiar. Spencer's partner goes bonkers and has a heart attack; on top of that, the partner's wife takes a fatal shower with a plugged-in radio. Getting out of the space biz, Spencer accepts a job as a corporate exec in New York, and as a welcome to the Big Apple for his comely wife, he molests her at the company cocktail party. Soon enough, Jillian is pregnant, but as you might expect, this pregnancy (twins, don't you know) is a little... unusual. Writer-director Rand Ravich takes his sweet time getting from extremely obvious plot point A to even more obvious plot point B, stretching out the development particulars in mind-numbing, suspense-killing fashion. Even Joe Morton, as a sinisterly psychotic NASA official, can't liven things up--you know you're in bad thriller territory when the biggest scare comes from a light suddenly being switched off. Theron, sporting a Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby style haircut, sleepwalks beautifully through the movie, but she did this role much, much better in The Devil's Advocate. Depp, with a cornpone Southern accent, is about as realistic as his peroxided hair. Ravich does the viewer no favours with a hackneyed ending straight out of a B-grade paperback horror novel in which the most shocking moment is Theron's sudden emergence as a brunette. With Blair Brown as a jaded socialite who offers to help out Theron by providing do-it-yourself abortion pills, and a lovely Donna Murphy as the suicidal wife who figures it all out before everyone else. -- Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Jennifer Love Hewitt is a beautiful and talented actress with style and charm. She is not, however, Audrey Hepburn, and try as she might, she is unable to embody the gamine actress in the made-for-television biopic The Audrey Hepburn Story.

Making the Hepburn bio was a gutsy move for Hewitt, and one has to admire her chutzpah. But the role, if it was to be dared, would have been better off in the hands of an unknown. As it is, it's difficult to shake the image of Hewitt in her television and teen roles, and while she mastered the wide-eyed look, her eyes are not doe-like enough and her accent borders on ludicrous. If you can move past this, though, the story of Hepburn's life--even given her do-gooder qualities--is interesting fodder for exploration, although at times the script feels as if it's trying to create tension where there is little. Desertion by her father, a brief stint in the resistance in wartime Netherlands, and affairs with fellow actors create drama, but not enough to enliven the film. Part of the problem is the entire film is told from flashback from the set of Breakfast at Tiffany's, so much of Hepburn's great work is left untouched.

Yet, despite the flaws, fans will appreciate the paean to Hepburn, as we glimpse into the difficulties of her early career and her budding stardom. The two girls who play the childhood Hepburn excel in their roles, and the strong supporting cast--including Frances Fisher as her mother and Eric McCormack as Mel Ferrer--brighten the film, which ultimately brings a touch of Hepburn's elegance to our own humdrum lives. --Jenny Brown