D Tuesday, February 9, 2010 metrolife 13 DVD of the Week The Soloist Universal, 12, 22The Soloist comes with some serious clout it stars Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx and is directed by Atonements Joe Wright. Its poster practically screams: Gimme Some Oscars! In the end, it was completely ignored by the Academy, possibly due to a slight lack of emotional punch (a delayed release date and poor box office performance didnt help). However, its stubborn understatedness ultimately proves to be its trump card and, while not a totally immersive experience, it is a perfectly fine piece of work. Downey Jr plays Steve Lopez, an LA Times columnist who stumbles upon what he thinks could be the story of a lifetime in Foxxs Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless classical musical whiz who literally makes birds soar when he plucks on a cello. Wright isnt interested in adding melodrama to the real-life events that give the film its story and there are no long-winded earnest speeches in Susannah Grants script. Although this rids the film of a by-the-numbers narrative, it also leaves it a little disjointed. On the plus side, we get plenty of one-on-ones between the two solid leads. Foxx doesnt oversell Nathaniels schizophrenia and Downey Jr, who can play journalists in his sleep by now, treads the fine line between cynical and crusading. The unresolved ending is also refreshing. While it may hit all the right notes, The Soloist doesnt necessarily play them in the right order its flashback sequences, although effective in their own right, feel jarring and disrupt the flow of the film. But there is much to enjoy here, not least the music: Beethoven never sounded so sweet. Extras: deleted scenes, featurettes, directors commentary. Ross McGuinness CD Sade: Soldier Of Love Sony Nothing about Sade Adus music is rushed. That much is clear from the languorous pauses between her record releases; sixth album Soldier Of Love is her first for a decade. Theres a lot of detail refined into opening track The Moon And The Sky: guitar, strings, electronics and those inimitable vocals, ageless, slightly androgynous, graceful and defiant. Whether Sade is delivering the title tracks romantic melodrama or the affectionate dub of Babyfather, her power derives from subtlety and easy intimacy; shes even remained loyal to the same band throughout her career (is it really 26 years since breakthrough work Diamond Life?). Unlike most modern female belters (Beyonc, Mariah et al), Sade never overuses her voice yet she gives this album her all. Arwa Haider Game MAG PS3, 53 The prospect of 256 players taking part in epic combat online is mouth-watering. And while MAG presents the most realistic portrayal of a genuine large-scale battlefield engagement to date, its probably just as confusing and unwieldy as the real thing. Anyone whos gone online in any sort of squad-based war game will know its hard enough to coordinate four players, let alone an army of 128. MAGs opening engagements can be utterly overwhelming but as the rank system becomes more refined and players gain experience, the idea is that commanders will emerge and order will follow. Its quite a bold experiment and one that, while bringing hundreds of players together in one arena, will ultimately appeal to only a very small number of gamers. But while the mechanics of this mass warfare remain to be proven, MAG as a shooter is let down by some pretty average gunplay. Steven Fox Natasha Demkina claims she has an extraordinary gift that means she can quite literally see right through people. In something more befitting a science fiction story, the young girl from Russia was brought to England where a series of tests were run to see if she was telling the truth. She had allegedly already identified cancers in other, fully-clothed people, leaving scientists baffled. The Pelican Brief TG4, 9.05pm Formulaic it may be the young and impressionable law student who discovers a dark secret and has to go on the run but this thriller has a classy enough cast to keep it above the normal fare. Julia Roberts (pictured) simmers and yelps at all the right times, with Denzel Washington on top form. Adam Hyland TV Picks The Girl With The X-ray Eyes 3e, 9pm BOOK Blue Blood by Edward Conlon Ebury Press, 15 Edward Conlons NYPD insider memoir was a 2004 New York Times bestseller but its merciless detailing and slang-heavy prose was probably deemed of little interest to Irish readers until a certain Baltimore-set TV crime series took us by storm. Blue Blood plunges into the world of New York cops in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is recounted by a Harvard graduate who couldnt resist his Irish-American familys police history. From his start as a South Bronx beat cop up to the point he makes detective, Conlon keeps up a flow of blackly humorous anecdotes about perps, informants and fellow boys in blue. Here, pan- handling informants earn more than the police officers who nurture them as sources, and petty office politics can destroy months of work. Conlons detours into family lore and wider history drag, and theres an unsavoury attempt to excuse the four policemen who shot and killed innocent, unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999. But he has a knack for letting us feel humanity at a level of skinned-alive intensity, and his account of 9/11, from the viewpoint of the men who had to sift the tonnes of rubble, is rawly affecting. Siobhn Murphy THEATRE REVIEW Last Train From Holyhead Two strangers meet on a train which is delayed at a platform in Holyhead. The older man Jack (Donal Cox) is heading to Luton and the younger, Pat (Brian Field), to London. To kill time, Jack jabbers on while the pair play poker and down whiskey. But when the only other passenger in their carriage, a meddlesome gypsy (Shirley Walsh), starts to make mystical pronouncements and deal tarot cards, she convinces Jack that theres a very good reason why the man across the table from him seems oddly familiar. Hawtheatres Last Train From Holyhead poses some salient questions in relation to the nature of the immigrant experience while also tracing the sorrowful legacy of state interference in the private affairs of citizens. But as a thriller this is a strangely bloodless affair and playwright Bernard Field teases little real tension out of the possibility that the two men may, in fact, be related. Walsh, with her forceful delivery and cock-eyed stares, is duly creepy as the soothsayer but neither Cox nor Dowling quite convince. And anyone whos ever spent time on a train with some old geezer prattling on might, understandably, be reluctant to relive the experience. Daragh Reddin Until Sat, Project Arts Centre, 39 Essex Street East D2, 8.15pm, 12 to 15. Tel: (01) 881 9613. www.project.ie index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html