THE CRITICS: VIDEOS

Primary Colors (15) Mike Nichols's adaptation of the novel by "Anonymous" (aka journalist Joe Klein), a fictionalised account of the 1992 Clinton campaign, was pre-empted by Barry Levinson's slicker, funnier Wag the Dog (completely fictional but eerily prophetic) and by real-life events that were arguably more compelling. (Also, several years earlier, D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus's engrossing documentary The War Room had already chronicled Bill Clinton's election bid from the revealing vantage point of the candidate's spin doctors.) Primary Colors is overly languid, rambling, and almost devoid of satirical bite. The protagonist is a Southern governor, Jack Stanton, played by John Travolta (less a performance than an adept Clinton impersonation). Brits Emma Thompson and Adrian Lester fare slightly better as, respectively, Stanton's ambitious wife and an idealistic Stephanopoulos-like aide. Kathy Bates's Libby Holden, old family friend and eccentric political fixer, is a refreshingly lively presence and the designated moral conscience. Unfortunately, she's also stuck with the responsibility of propelling the movie towards an awkwardly melodramatic conclusion.

Still Crazy (15) As unassumingly likeable as The Full Monty (which it shamelessly echoes), this feel-good, character-driven lark revolves around the cash-in reunion of "seminal" but little-remembered rockers Strange Fruit, who disbanded at "the 1977 Wisbech Rock Festival". Twenty years on, keyboardist Tony (Stephen Rea), now a condom salesman, is ready for a comeback. The Fruits' wild-child guitarist has long since gone missing, but with the help of the band's loyal assistant (Juliet Aubrey), Tony tracks down the bassist (Jimmy Nail), now a family man; the tubby drummer (Timothy Spall); and Ray (Bill Nighy), pretty-boy singer turned train wreck. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Still Crazy is brisk and entertaining. True, some of the humour is too easy, the cues are clumsy, and there's a surfeit of prog-glitter on the soundtrack. But it's difficult to resist the good-natured casualness with which it's all thrown together, or the uniformly appealing performances.