Film: Secret Defense

SECRET DEFENSE, which translates as Top Secret, finds Jacques Rivette sprinkling his magic dust on a routine story about a young woman (Sandrine Bonnaire) snagged between impotence and aggression in the search for her father's murderer. It's Hamlet in slow-motion. Rivette has the hungry eye of a voyeur combined with the sad heart of a wounded romantic. Under his watchful gaze, the most innocuous act creaks with foreboding; he very subtly makes you squirm for a full 90 minutes. Only one problem. In Secret Defense, there are still another 80 to go.

On release

The daft horror movie Deep Rising establishes its B-movie credentials with an abundance of bad dialogue and a scene in which a woman is sucked down a toilet. And nice to see our own Jason Flemyng (above) firing automatic weapons at toothy sea serpents. Not the sort of thing a British actor gets to do every day of the week.

On release