The latest releases reviewed

ONE MORE THING...

COLUMBO SEASONS 1-7  *****

Starring Peter FalkPG cert

What is the greatest gift one person can give another? Love? Trust? Respect? All those abstract concepts will, I suppose, do well enough, but they are as dust - smelly dust, actually - when set beside this lavish 23-disc set comprising every episode of the original 1970s incarnation of Columbo.

Featuring an agreeably eccentric performance by Peter Falk, up to that point best known for his collaborations with John Cassavetes, the series inverted the conventional structure of the cop series - we see the murder committed and then watch as Columbo solves the crime - and then stuck to its own format with the unshakeable formality you might expect from a composer of Petrarchan sonnets.

The result is without question the best detective show ever broadcast on American television. What other series could have persuaded the likes of Ruth Gordon, Leonard Nimoy, Martin Landau and Johnny Cash to appear as murderers? And, yes, that's right trivia buffs, Steven Spielberg did direct the first episode. DC

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN ***

Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino.PG cert

After a thoroughly disappointing sequel, the crooks led by Danny Ocean (Clooney) return to Las Vegas - and to form - for an elaborate scam. Revenge is the motive as he and his gang plot to sabotage the lavish new casino owned by a ruthless egomaniac (Pacino). The large central cast interacts with a lightness of touch that ideally suits this soufflé. MD

DANS PARIS/ INSIDE PARIS ***

Directed by Christophe Honoré. Starring Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Guy Marchand, Joana Preiss, Marie-France Pisier.15 cert

Honoré pays homage to the French New Wave movement in a loquacious picture of two brothers played with evident chemistry by Garrel as a cheerily insouciant, sexually active young man and Duris as a moody photographer depressed after his lover leaves him. MD

EXILED/ FONGCHUK ***

Directed by Johnnie To. Starring Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Nick Cheung, Simon Yam, Josie Ho, Lam Suet, Richie Jen18 cert

This intense, stylish thriller from Hong Kong action maestro To is formed as a series of extended balletic shoot-outs involving multiple gunslingers in Macau in 1998, a year before the Portuguese island colony is due to be handed over to China. MD

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN **

Directed by Douglas Mackinnon. Starring Jonny Lee Miller, Laura Fraser, Billy Boyd, Brian Cox, Morven Christie, Niall Fulton, Steven Berkoff15 cert

This Rocky-on-wheels is yet another thoroughly conventional tale of a stubbornly determined underdog fulfilling his ambition against all the odds: cyclist Graham Obree (Miller), who set a new world record in 1993 - on a bicycle assembled from scrap metal and washing machine parts. MD

GROW YOUR OWN **

Directed by Richard Laxton. Starring Philip Jackson, Eddie Marsan, Omid DjaliliPG cert

Decent, if rather worthy, picture from the post-Monty school in which a group of refugees heal themselves while toiling on an allotment alongside initially hostile Liverpudlians. It hardly need be said that everyone ends up being friends. Sadly the picture's overpowering good intentions rapidly get on your nerves. DC

THE GOOD GERMAN **

Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Tony Curran, Leland Orser15A cert

George romances Cate in post-war Berlin. Soderbergh, once the great new hope, continues to faff about with this studiously executed, but largely pointless, pastiche of 1940s noir. The monochrome photography is accurate, the wipes and back projections are nice, but the story is far too messily told to retain interest. DC