New DVD Releases - September 7, 2010

Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher are paired in this action comedy. Jen (Heigl) has been dumped and travels with her parents — overbearing father (Tom Selleck) and boozy mother (Catherine O'Hara) — to the French Riviera. There Jen meets hunky Spencer (Kutcher), an assassin for an unnamed government agency. They marry, work regular jobs and settle into quiet suburban life for three years, with her remaining unaware of what his occupation was when she met him. Then one day their lives are turned upside down when Spencer becomes the target of multiple assassination attempts.

This comedy is based on a Saturday Night Live skit that spoofs the 1980s TV show MacGyver. Will Forte plays MacGruber with a mullet hairdo and invariably wearing a plaid shirt and vest. In the movie, MacGruber comes out of a self-imposed 10-year exile in Latin America when he has the chance to go after the man who killed his bride on their wedding day. That man is Dieter von Cunth (Val Kilmer). MacGruber tries to assemble a team, but ends up with only two people (played by Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe).

Michael Douglas stars in this character study, a small film about an arrogant man who has charisma, but is not likable. The movie relies heavily on good writing and fine performances, and the cast includes Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer, Jesse Eisenberg, Susan Sarandon and Danny DeVito. Ben Kalmen (Douglas) once owned highly successful car dealerships and enjoyed a stable marriage. But he cheated in business and on his wife, and now he's down on his luck, divorced, and trying to get restarted somehow. There's humor in the movie, but ultimately Ben is on a downward spiral.