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Grace). The situation lends itself to grim farce, and Lee has a lot of fun with it, from having Stallworth “train” his fellow cops on how to see the world from where he stands, to cat-and-mouse games in which Stallworth and Zimmerman are almost caught out.
As the film goes on, Lee starts to dial down the comedy and increase the jeopardy. The Klan members are portrayed as flat-out morons, but one or two have enough rat-like cunning to make them dangerous.
The politics begins to be amped up, too, as when Stallworth tells a fellow cop that “America would never elect someone like David Duke president”,
THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME (15) ***
Dir: Susanna Fogel
With: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon Runtime: 117 minutes
SCOTS Outlander star Sam Heughan is used to finding himself in odd spots, but playing an English MI6 agent in a buddy feminist spy caper has to be one of his stranger gigs. Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon are the best friends who land themselves in trouble abroad. McKinnon is something of an acquired taste but comes right in the end – much like this likeably daft comedy.
ALPHA (12A) **
Dir: Albert Hughes
With: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Natassia Malthe Runtime: 96 minutes
WELCOME to prehistoric times, when mammoths, sabretoothed tigers and wolves competed with man for food. Young Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee) looks like he might become a wolf’s lunch but fate has something else in mind. The hunting scenes will be too much for younger cinemagoers, ditto the subtitles.
THE CHILDREN ACT (12A) **
Dir: Richard Eyre
With: Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci Runtime 105 minutes
IAN McEwan’s novel about a High Court judge (Emma Thompson) and the moral tangles she must unravel lands on the screen with a dull thud. Thompson and Stanley Tucci are fine but wasted as the couple under strain. It is telling that the most interesting thing on screen during this slow, stagey drama is the Mayes’ fabulous flat in Gray’s Inn Square.
only to be be told by a white colleague: “Coming from a black guy, that’s pretty naive. Why don’t you wake up?” Lee’s drawing of connections between 1970s America and the US of today is done with sledgehammer subtlety, but it hardly matters.
Lee lets the tale get away from him in a baggy middle section in which he is juggling the Stallworth-Zimmerman relationship with that of Stallworth and a black woman activist (Patrice Dumas). One fears he is going to allow his film to putter out. Wrong. He delivers not one but two powerhouse closing acts. The first, bringing the Stallworth story to an end, has all the
NARCOS – SEASON THREE (CERT 15) £19.99
The gritty Netflix biographical drama about real-life drug kingpins, who waged war against the law enforcement officers trying to bring them down, shoots its way on to the home formats. The third series unfolds in the aftermath of the death of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. The Cali cartel run by Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela , his brother Miguel and their associate Jose Santacruz Londono fills the power vacuum and takes a different approach to building a cocaine empire. The four-disc DVD/Blu-ray sets include all 10 episodes.
The opening four instalments of the spin-off series from the 2012 ITV drama The Bletchley Circle follows two of the plucky codebreakers, Jean McBrian (Julie Graham) and Millie Harcourt (Rachael Stirling), as they embark on an exciting new case on the other side of the Atlantic. Following their heroic wartime efforts at Bletchley Park, Jean and Millie have resettled in London. The grisly, unsolved murder of a codebreaking friend in 1942 continues to haunt the two women and when more victims are discovered with similar wounds on the Pacific Coast, Jean and Millie head to San Francisco. They join forces with US counterparts to unmask a serial killer.
THE LAST WITNESS (CERT 15) £14.99
In the aftermath of the Second World War, idealistic reporter Stephen Underwood (Alex Pettyfer) is looking for an explosive story to further his ambitions. He learns about a spate of suicides by resettled Polish soldiers under British command and follows the evidence to liaison officer Colonel Janusz Pietrowski (Will Thorp), who is reluctant to discuss the case. As Stephen digs deeper, he uncovers a horrifying conspiracy of silence involving the British military and the execution of 22,000 Polish military and civilians, supposedly by German forces. The investigation haunts Stephen and he seeks refuge with Jeanette (Talulah Riley), the wife of his brother Captain John Underwood (Gwilym Lee).
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY (CERT 12) £19.99
In the aftermath of the Blitz, author Juliet Ashton (Lily James) receives a letter from a Guernsey farmer called Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), who shares fascinating details about a literary society established under German occupation. Intrigued by this inspirational story of defiance in a time of conflict, Juliet travels to the island to meet Dawsey and club members. The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society is a cumbersome title for a sweeping tale of selfsacrifice, based on the novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.