NEW ON DVD AND BLU-RAY
“ABDUCTION,” starring Taylor Lautner and Lily Collins. Intriguing, briskly paced thriller wherein a young man (Lautner of the “Twilight” series) discovers his baby photo on a missing persons website, putting everything he thought he knew about his upbringing into question and setting him on a quest for answers that could prove deadly. By and large, Lautner makes up for a lack of range with undeniable presence, and veteran director John Singleton (“Boyz n the Hood”) keeps the action coming at a breathless clip. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1:46
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Suggested retail price: $29.95; Blu-ray $39.99
“COURAGEOUS,” starring Alex Kendrick and Ken Bevel. Sincere, Christian-themed drama from director/star Kendrick (“Fireproof”) proved a surprise sleeper hit with its timely tale of a group of police officers and family men struggling to maintain their roles as fathers and husbands while dealing with gang violence in the course of their daily grind. An earnest appeal for family values, “Courageous” may invite snickers for its occasionally hamfisted dialogue and overt preaching, but its underlying message is hard to argue with, and while few and far between, the film’s action sequences are handled extremely effectively. Rated PG-13. Running time: 2:09
Suggested retail price: $30.99; Blu-ray $35.99
“THE IDES OF MARCH,” starring Ryan Gosling and George Clooney. A down-and-dirty political drama that wouldn’t be out of place beside cynical ’70s classics “All the President’s Men” and “The Parallax View,” “March” finds director/star Clooney in top form as governor and presidential candidate Mike Morris, who introduces his idealistic young staffer (Gosling) to a system more corrupt than he could have possibly imagined. The top-notch supporting cast includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright and Marisa Tomei. Rated R. Running time: 1:41
Suggested retail price: $30.99; Blu-ray $35.99
“MYSTERIES OF LISBON,” starring Adriano Luz and Maria Joao Bastos. Old-fashioned storytelling meets newfangled filmmaking in this mind-blowing epic from veteran director Raoul Ruiz, adapting a notoriously lengthy book by Camilo Castelo Branco that details the tumultuous life of a boy in a Lisbon orphanage via an enthralling web of stories. Don’t let the running time scare you off, as Ruiz employs every trick in the book to hook the fortunate viewer of this sumptuous, expertly realized tale. Not rated; contains sexual content. Running time: 4:17
Suggested retail price: $34.95; Blu-ray $43.95
“BUCKY LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR,” starring Nick Swardson and Christina Ricci. Universally reviled by critics and avoided by audiences, producer Adam Sandler’s attempt to make leading-man material out of comedian Swardson failed to pan out, to say the least. But in the forgiving light of DVD, there are shameful chuckles to be had in this tale of a clueless, unfortunately coiffed yokel who becomes a porno sensation in spite of a distinct lack of development in both the equipment and performance departments. An excellent supporting cast helps matters considerably, with funny turns from Edward Herrmann (“Gilmore Girls”), Don “Miami Vice” Johnson, and especially “SNL” vet Kevin Nealon as Bucky’s hilariously paranoid roommate. Rated R. Running time: 1:37
Suggested retail price: $30.99; Blu-ray $35.99
NEW TO BLU-RAY
“DUTCH,” starring Ed O’Neill and Ethan Embry. Overlooked 1991 effort from writer and ’80s icon John Hughes is an unapologetically vicious yet strangely charming knockabout road comedy, with a gleefully unhinged O’Neill (“Modern Family”) doggedly attempting to transport his new girlfriend’s horrible child (Embry) home from military school for Thanksgiving. Relatively free of warm fuzzies save for a scene or two, the increasingly hostile relationship between O’Neill and Embry makes for refreshingly unsentimental holiday entertainment along the lines of “The Ref.” Rated PG-13. Running time: 1:47
Suggested retail price: $17.98
“TRAFFIC,” starring Benicio Del Toro and Michael Douglas. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a decade since director Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed crime drama hit theaters, but this Criterion release is here to remind us of its brilliance. Taking a hard look at America’s war on drugs via four occasionally interconnected stories, Soderbergh (who took home a best director Oscar) and his fine cast (including fellow Oscar winner Del Toro) delivered an uncompromising portrait of an incredibly complicated issue. Special features include 25 deleted scenes. Rated R. Running time: 2:27
Suggested retail price: $39.95
VIDEOPORT PICKS
“DELOCATED: THE COMPLETE SEASONS ONE AND TWO,” starring Jon Glaser and Eugene Mirman. “Delocated” relates the hilariously surreal story of Jon (played by series creator and former Conan O’Brien writer Glaser), who, after testifying against the Russian mafia, must move his family to New York City as part of the witness protection program. Perhaps ill-advisedly under the circumstances, he also agrees to star in a reality show about the experience, and the resultant footage makes for some wonderfully awkward and wholly unpredictable comedy. Not rated; contains language, comic violence, sexual content and crude humor. Running time: 5:47
Suggested retail price: $29.98
“REDLINE,” animated with the voices of Takuya Kimura and Yu Aoi. To describe “Redline” as “Death Race 2000” in anime form very glibly captures the overall vibe of the film but does nothing to prepare the viewer for the sheer amount of innovation and talent on display. The brunt of the plot consists of outlandish, vividly designed characters competing in interstellar high-speed racing. Not rated contains violence, language and sexual content. Running time: 1:42
Suggested retail price: $24.98; Blu-ray $29.99
— Courtesy of Videoport
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