BLOOD AND WINE (Bob Rafelson) **

The bland throwaway title warns about a mundane thriller; GRUMPY OLD MEN is more appropriate in attitude. Michael Caine is most effective as an oily ex-con concerned about dying a poor has-been, while partner-in-crime wine merchant Jack Nicholson plays himself, and one wishes he'd try something different. Their plans to get rich off the theft of a million dollar necklace goes astray when wife Judy Davis and stepson Stephen Dorff leave Nicholson and inadvertently take the booty with them. The fine acting turns are wasted on an unimaginative and not-too-gripping plot.

BODY WITHOUT SOUL (Wiktor Grodecki, 1996) **1/2

BODY WITHOUT SOUL is compelling because of its subjects - young men in the Prague gay porn film industry and their handler, the particularly contemptuous "director" who doubles as a police coroner by day. Lured by the money, the young men (and they are barely men) are already world-weary and all too wary of the predicaments they have willingly placed themselves in. Too bad Grodecki's direction isn't up to snuff.

DAS BOOT (Director's Cut Restoration) (Wolfgang Peterson) ****

A most perfect recreation of both visual and psychological atmosphere, from the thrill of the chase to the dank claustrophobic space. A pall of death hangs over the latest mission of the U-96, one of the last of the once-feared German U-boats of WWII, and the captain knows it. The Allies are on to them, and in this game of cat and mouse it is the U-96 which too often becomes the mouse. With almost certain and horrible death on board one can't help but lead captain and crew on and out of their submersible coffin. A gripping three and a half-hour tour of duty.