Film: DVD Reviews

The British 'MI-5' is a stoic spy game

By Jeff Salamon
January 15, 2004

'MI-5: Volume 1'

($49.95, BBC Video)
(show)
(DVD format and extras)

The spies who spend each episode of "MI-5" saving Mother England from its enemies don't seem to enjoy a minute of it. They are, temperamentally, the heirs of John le Carré's ironically named George Smiley, not Ian Fleming's James Bond. Of course, the Cold War's decades-old standoff amply justified Smiley's gloom. Defeating the Communists wasn't the goal; staving them off without sinking to their level was victory enough.

But "MI-5" is set in a different world. Though conceived before 9/11, the show caught up to the times quickly enough. The series' first two (and lesser) episodes focused on run-of-the-mill late-20th century boogiemen -- anti-abortion terrorists and white supremacists. But soon after, the show resituated itself in the 21st century of al Qaeda extremists, Kurdish liberationists and sundry rabble-rousers with access to nuclear or biological weapons. It's heart-racing stuff -- more Fleming than le Carré, actually -- making the grim stoicism the characters display in the face of the apocalypse all the more bracing. This is the thinking man's machismo.

So though the cover of the three-DVD set collecting the show's first season emphasizes the sex appeal of the youthful Tom Quinn, Zoe Reynolds and Danny Hunter, the show itself draws viewers' attention elsewhere. The most compelling presences in "MI-5" are Peter Firth's middle-aged Harry Pearce, Jenny Agutter's similarly ripe Tessa Phillips and even Tom Quinn, who Matthew Macfayden plays as if he were 35 going on 60. These are the people who remember the George Smileys of the world, and though they save the West on a weekly basis, they're under no illusion that they're doing anything more than buying time. Firth, who does some of the most incendiary slow burns in the business -- you suspect the reason he's going bald is that he has singed his hair from the inside out -- has turned his secondary role as a humorless prig of a boss into, arguably, the show's center of gravity. After a while, Harry Pearce's struggles for bureaucratic dominance seem like a metaphor for Firth's unstinting efforts to bend the series' arc toward himself.

"MI-5: Volume I" collects the six hourlong episodes that make up the show's first season and spreads them too thinly over three DVDs. The "extras" -- trivial commentary, banal "profiles" of the characters, a maddening interactive menu that forces the viewer to play spy -- are hardly worth the added expense and ungainliness of a box set. Such pomp is undeserved -- this is slick genre television, not "The Seventh Seal."

But American fans of the first two seasons (a third is on the way) won't be able to resist, if only because when the A&E Network bought the rights to the series from the BBC, it chopped 15 minutes out of each hour to make way for commercials. Cable viewers sense the omissions; the pacing is often jerky and fine points of plot and motivation get lost. So it's nice to finally watch the show in its intended form -- and have the chance to savor the meaning of every sour grimace and dead-eyed stare.

'Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete First Season'

($29.99, Warner Home Video)
(show)
(DVD format and extras)


The Pants Tent. Porno Gil. Beloved "Aunt." The episode titles of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" first season have as many giggle-worthy memories attached to them as any list of "Seinfeld" episodes. While fans of "Curb" have hailed it as the second coming of that famous show about nothing ("Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David stars in and writes the outlines for the semi-improvised "Curb"), the HBO show is more apt to wallow in its own misanthropy.

A one-hour HBO special, "Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm" set up the show's premise: Sitcom auteur Larry David goes through life as the instigator and victim of circumstance. The first-season DVD set thoughtfully includes that special (in which Larry works his way toward an HBO comedy special before bailing at the last minute in cowardice) as well as a 30-minute Bob Costas interview in which David and the spookily knowledgable sportscaster compare pants tents (the misleading bulge created by the folds in a pair of thick pants).

Other than commentary on the first episode from David, actress Cheryl Hines, actor and executive producer Jeff Garlin and director Robert Weide, fans who've seen the first-season run won't get much more out of the set. Still, as subsequent seasons have proved, it's a show that will hold up to repeated viewings.
-- Omar L. Gallaga

'Swimming Pool'

($26.98, Universal Studios; includes unrated and R-rated versions)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

Even the most mundane DVDs boast of their "bonus features." So what to make of a disc that contains some deleted scenes (albeit dull ones following Charlotte Rampling's Sarah as she sightsees in France) and says nothing about them on the package? If you think that's careless, how about a film with a large chunk of French dialogue that has no menu option for English subtitles? There are subtitles hidden there, found through trial-and-error with the remote, which is also how you'll figure out how to fast-forward through the disc's force-fed previews.

This is an awfully haphazard release of a movie that doesn't grow much on second viewing. Rampling plays a frumpy English mystery novelist who retreats to the French countryside seeking inspiration only to have a young sexpot (Ludivine Sagnier) crash the party, monopolizing the pool and bedding every man in the province. After initial conflict, the women become fascinated with each other; the movie may start as "The Odd Couple," but it turns into a shifting-identity whodunnit that might have been more fascinating with David Lynch at the helm. It's a highly sexualized mystery, but voyeurs cooing "ooh la la" at the "unrated" edition of the disc will be disappointed to find it appears to be the same cut that played the Dobie last year. The film is only half-satisfying; writer/director François Ozon doesn't drop quite enough clues about the psychological game he's playing here, but his leading ladies pick up the slack with compelling performances.
-- John DeFore

Also out on DVD this week: "Freddy vs. Jason," "Lost in Space: The Complete First Season," "Out of Time," "Johnny English," "Annie (Special Anniversary Edition)," "Green Acres: The Complete First Season," "Superfly."