Each Tuesday, CrimeFeed rounds up a roster of significant new releases on streaming services, Blu-ray, and other home-video formats that will be interest to fans who are fascinated by both sides of the law.
Here’s our curated list of criminally entertaining picks for February 14, 2017.
HOMEFRONT (2013)
Format: Blu-ray
Genre: Action/Crime Thriller
Director: Gary Fleder
Cast: Jason Statham, Winona Ryder, James Franco
Scripted by Sylvester Stallone, Homefront stars Jason Statham as an ex-DEA agent whose violent confrontation with an outlaw biker gang has prompted him to swear off law enforcement and take up farming.
Related: Waco Biker Gang Members Could Walk Free Despite 9 Deaths And 170 Arrests From The Deadly Shootout
After his daughter gets bullied at school though, a chain of events leads to Statham facing down a rural meth kingpin who happens to be in cahoots with the bikers that have been hunting him for vengeance.
INTO THE ABYSS (2011)
Format: Netflix streaming
Genre: Documentary
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Jason Burkett, Michael Perry, Werner Herzog
Working with Investigation Discovery, master documentarian Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man) examines a 2001 triple murder in Texas committed by Michael Perry and Jason Burkett. Perry is sentenced to death; Burkett is serving 40 years.
Herzog interviews the convicts, their families, and the loved ones of the people they killed. He spoke to each subject just once, and filmed Perry’s talk eight days before the prisoner was executed.
Related: A Look Back — Karla Faye Tucker Was the First Woman Executed in texas Since 1863
In one unforgettable encounter, Herzog also speaks with Fred Allen, a Texas prison official who oversaw more than 125 executions before the lethal injection of Karla Faye Tucker prompted him to walk away. In every regard, Into the Abyss is a profound experience.
KISS OF DEATH (1947)
Format: Blu-ray, DVD
Genre: Crime Thriller/Film Noir
Director: Henry Hathaway
Cast: Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark
Special Features: Two audio commentaries with film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman, plus James Ursini and Alain Silver; music track; trailer
More Info: Twilight Time
An incendiary film noir classic, Kiss of Death stars Victor Mature as an ex-convict who’s trying to go straight. All seems well until psychotic killer Richard Widmark — a former conspirator against whom Mature ratted in prison — is on the streets and hellbent on unholy revenge.
Related: Woman Accused Of Beating Wheelchair-Bound Mother When She Wouldn’t Give Her Drugs
Kiss of Death is pure black-and-white dynamite, and it boasts what is still one of the most shocking scenes in the history of cinema: Widmark actually committing one of life’s unthinkable acts and pushing an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs.
NASH BRIDGES: THE FOURTH SEASON (1998-99)
Genre: TV Detective Series
Format: Blu-ray, DVD
Cast: Don Johnson, Cheech Marin, Jodi Lynn O’Keefe
Don Johnson stars as the ambling, laid-back titular hero of the popular CBS cop series, Nash Bridges. He and Cheech Marin as Lt. Joe Dominguez crack cases as partners on the San Francisco Police Department’s “Special Investigations Unit,” catching the bad guys with good humor and clever touches that turned the show into a hit in more than 70 countries worldwide.
PERFORMANCE (1970)
Genre: Crime Thriller/Avant-Garde
Format: Blu-ray
Directors: Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg
Cast: Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, James Fox
Special Features: “Memo From Turner” documentary
More Info: Warner Archive
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger makes his acting debut in Performance as Turner, a hedonistic rock star in seclusion who takes in James Fox as Chas, a London gangster on the run.
Turner lives in a ménage à trois with Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michele Breton). While Chas holes up with the trio, the characters become enmeshed in each other, prompting all sexual and even personal identity lines to blur and fall away in a haze of absolute outlaw, decline-of-the-hippie-era decadence.
Related: Crime History: The Rolling Stones Play Altamont in 1969; Death Steals The Show
Codirectors Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg each went on to fascinating cinematic careers. Performance, though, still packs an unshakeable wallop of sensory overload all its own, making it a crime film so weirdly masterful that watching it somehow feels like committing a crime in itself.
PIG PEN (2016)
Genre: Horror/Crime Thriller
Format: Blu-ray, DVD
Director: Jason Koch
Cast: Lucas Koch, Nicolette Le Faye, Vito Trigo
More Info: Facebook
A genre-busting blend of urban crime, cruel horror, and heartbreaking family drama, film festival favorite Pig Pen chronicles Zach (Jason Koch), a 13-year-old who flees his pill-addicted mother Sandy (Nicolette Le Fey) and her barbaric drug-hustler boyfriend Wayne (Vito Trigo) to eke out an existence on the streets.
After repeatedly witnessing the casual but savage sadism of life (and death) among those who dwell in back alleys and behind garbage dumpsters, Zach returns home to take on Wayne, igniting a gruesome round of cat-and-mouse pursuit in which no one ends up happy.
Related: Puppy Treated For Drug Addiction After Testing Positive For Meth And Heroin
Writer-director Jason M. Koch makes a remarkable indie shocker debut with Pig Pen, as does his son Jason in the lead role. It is not, however, for the squeamish.
THE YAKUZA (1974)
Genre: Crime Thriller
Format: Blu-ray
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Brian Keith
More Info: Warner Archive
Directed by Sydney Pollack (Jeremiah Johnson, Absence of Malice) from a script by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and Robert Towne (Chinatown), screen legend Robert Mitchum (Night of the Hunter) stars in The Yakuza as Harry Kilmer, a private eye whose latest case pits him against the Japanese underworld organization of the title.
Ken Takakura, a major film figure in Asia known as “the Clint Eastwood of Japan,” costars as Tanaka Ken, an ex-Yakuza member who shares World War II history with Kilmer and owes the detective a personal debt.
Related: 6 New Crime Movie Releases To Stream And Buy This Week
Kilmer travels to Japan and teams with Ken to rescue an American woman kidnapped by Yakuza overlords. From there, Pollack mounts a dazzling series of artfully violent set pieces that each land with bruising impact.
Fans of hard-boiled, two-fisted, razor-edged ’70s crime thrillers will find The Yakuza heavenly. All others are also in for a ripping good movie.
Looking for more true crime? Watch your favorite Investigation Discovery series with ID GO.
Main image: Into the Abyss [IFC Films promotional image]
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