DVDs of the week

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (CERT 12) TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT, £19.99

Guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) welcome Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) as lead singer of their band Smile. Bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) enriches the group’s sound as they take on the Queen mantle, supported by a volatile inner circle. Away from the recording studio, Freddie locks horns with his father and wrestles with his sexuality while married to lifelong companion Mary Austin.

Bohemian Rhapsody is a crowd-pleasing musical biopic, which covers the 15 years between the formation of the group and Queen’s triumphant 20-minute set at Live Aid in 1985. It’s a thunderbolts and lightning moment, electrified by slick digital effects and Malek’s gesture-perfect showboating.

The script takes a few historical liberties. Mercury was reportedly diagnosed with HIV/ Aids in 1987 but in the film he confides the illness to bandmates two years earlier. So there is added poignancy at Wembley Stadium when Malek fixes the camera with a mournful gaze and belts out the title song’s lyrics: “Too late, my time has come” and “I don’t want to die”.

The Bafta-winning actor vanishes into the role. It’s a virtuoso turn from Malek that paints the flamboyant lead singer as a beautiful, flawed creature.

HUNTER KILLER (CERT 15), LIONSGATE HOME ENTERTAINMENT, £14.99

A shootout beneath the ice of the Barents Sea close to Russia immobilises the USS Tampa Bay. Admiral Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman), chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sanctions a mission to discover the fate of the missing submarine. With guidance from Rear Admiral John Fisk, Donnegan appoints Commander Joe Glass (Gerard Butler) as captain of the USS Arkansas, which is docked at Faslane.

The crew, including jittery Execution Officer Brian Edwards, prepares to sail into hostile waters patrolled by Russian warships.

As the Arkansas reaches the last known location of the missing submarine, covert surveillance reveals the Russian minister of defence, Dmitri Durov, has staged a coup and is holding President Zakarin hostage.

In response, Glass and his crew prepare to rescue the Russian president with the help of Navy Seals on the ground led by Bill Beaman.

Based on the novel Firing Point by Don Keith and George Wallace, Hunter Killer is entertaining hogwash. Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss’ script torpedoes subtlety and springs a few plot holes but largely keeps its head above water for two undemanding hours. Director Donovan Marsh generates tension from the claustrophobic confines of a heavily armed submarine and sporadically unleashes hell in propulsive action sequences.