Latest Video/DVD releases reviewd.

THE COOLER
Directed by Wayne Kramer. Starring William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Maria Bello, Shawn Hatosy, Ron Livingston, Paul Sorvino. 18 cert
****

Macy plays a man whose luck is so bad that he is hired by old-school casino boss Baldwin to stand beside punters to bust their flushes. Then one day he bumps into a pretty girl and things start to look up. Kramer's hard-boiled drama rejects Las Vegas's new family image and focuses closely on the grimy corners where fools learn unhappy lessons about the immutable laws of probability. Only the cheesy denouement disappoints. Donald Clarke

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Directed by Edgar Wright. Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Dylan Moran, Lucy Davis, Bill Nighy 15 cert
****

North London succumbs to the undead. On second viewing it becomes clear that this comic homage to George Romero's zombie films by the team behind Channel 4's Spaced is one of the funniest British film comedies of the last few years (faint praise, I hear you say). When you take the delicious selection of extras into account - among them a wonderfully pointless commentary by some zombie extras - the DVD becomes a near-essential purchase. Donald Clarke

ZATOICHI
Directed by Takeshi Kitano. Starring Beat Takeshi, Tadanobu Asano, Yui Natsukawa, Michiyo Oguso, Guadalcanal Taka. 18 cert
****

Blood spurts forth in torrents, limbs fly in all directions and the body count escalates in Kitano's exhilarating, flamboyantly stylised action movie in which he plays a legendary Japanese anti-hero, a blind, seemingly frail but deadly swordsman who fearlessly tackles injustice. Michael Dwyer