MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN
RED SPARROW (15) (Download now, DVD and Blu-ray from Monday) ALMOST fascinatingly dreadful, Red Sparrow is a spy thriller crammed with corny characters, toecurling cliches and sickening violence. And the sex scenes have all the eroticism of two wheelie bins. Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballerina whose career comes to a halt when she’s crocked on stage.
Her urgent need to find an alternative income – to keep caring for her sick mum (Joely Richardson) – sees her coerced into a new life as a sparrow. By that, I mean a spy who uses seduction to extract the info she’s after – in this case from CIA agent Nate (Joel Edgerton) – but who’s partial to more brutal extremes should the need happen to arise.
A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL (15)
(DVD)
HUGH Grant is superb in this BBC drama. He plays the former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, plotting to have his former lover Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw) bumped off, back in the days when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE (12)
(DVD from Monday)
LIAM Neeson plays the FBI number two who exposed the 1970s Watergate scandal and toppled President Richard Nixon. It’s an important story of an important man, but sadly the film itself is a long way short of compelling.
INSIDE THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST PRISONS
(Netflix)
THIS fascinating four-part documentary available to Netflix subscribers from today, is fronted by Raphael Rowe, a top investigative reporter who spent 12 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. He goes back behind bars for four weeks, spending one each in Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Ukraine and Belize.
THE BRIDGE: SEASON FOUR (15) (Download, DVD & Blu-ray) SWEDISH detective Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) reunites with Copenhagen cop Henrik Sabroe (Thure Lindhardt) to look into a string of gruesome killings. The first is the stoning-to-death of a leading government officer.