The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 390

a FISms The Martins (Dir: Tony Grounds, 15) Layabout loser dad (Lee Evans) takes his family to the Isle of Man but he's tied up the real winners of the holiday competition to get there. Kathy Burke as mum won the acting plaudits, but the tone of the film left critics bemused. Was it social realism or comedy? "It's as if Norman Wisdom were dropped into a Ken Loach film," said the Observer. Hotdog, though, found it "touching, gritty and The Fast and the Furious (Dir. Rob Cohen, 15) This summer's surprise US box office smash sees an undercover cop infiltrate LAs car-racing gangs to hunt down truck hijackers.

"As heart-pumping, brain-in-neutral movie experiences it's pretty hard to beat," raved the Sun. But only for a young male audience, wrote the Express, which wondered about the film's laddish undertones. Total Film agreed: "One for the boys, strutting through a world where every girl in the crowd is a silicone-enhanced hottie and every car has a chromed engine spouting Kevlar manifolds." Sweet SmeSI off Success (Din Alexander Mackendrick, PG) Forty-odd years on and Burt Lancaster's hate-filled gossip columnist and Tony Curtis' reptilian press agent remain two of cinema's most monstrous creations. "Mackendrick's 1957 gem ferments a vicious atmosphere of sleaze from a screenplay of pure acid," wrote the Telegraph. "One of the best films ever made" (Mail on Sunday); "a truly great film about New York and megalomania" (Times); "perhaps the most ruthlessly honest excursion into the sweaty corners of the American Dream yet committed to film" (Time Out); "unmissable" (Guardian).

Hotdog 6 Observer 2 Heat 5 Mail on Sunday 4 ti'meOut 7 Average 4.8 Pandaemonium Shiner (Dir. Julian Temple, 12) (Din John Inin, 18) Wordsworth is the panto- Bareknuckle boxing stager mime villain, Coleridge the (Michael Caine) goes legit tortured visionary and his- but gets mixed up in some-torical accuracy the loser in thing well dodgy. "Punch Temple's film (above) on the drunk by the second reel," romantic poets. "A bold jour- jabbed the Observer. "Plot ney into artistic inspiration goes down in the third," and excess," enthused Hot- pummeled Total Film.

Time dog. "Temple achieves his Out stood up for the plucky own moments of visual Brit, applauding its back-to-poetry," added the Observer, basics approach: "As though quite watch- ered and old-fashioned-able," thought the Guardian, British as its All dubbing the film "Carry On were agreed Caine gives a Up the Lake heavyweight performance. Hotdog 8 Total Film 4 Sunday Times 6 Sunday Times 4 Sunday Telegraph 6 Time Out 7 Observer 7 Observer 4 Guardian 6 Hotdog 8 Average 6.6 Average 5.4 Sunday Times 4 Heat 6 Total Film 8 Sun 8 Daily Express 2 Average 5.6 Time Out 10 Guardian 10 Times 10 Daily Telegraph 10 Mail on Sunday 10 We assess the critics' reviews for the latest shows and releases on a scale of 1 (panned) to 10 (adored). By Matthew Bell 10 Average TSie digested read Too busy to read the hot books? Let us read them for you The Veteran and other stories by Frederick Forsyth (Bantam, 16.99). Condensed in the style of the original Freddie stared grimly at the FTSE index, watching his fortune melt away in a sea of red.

Damned Europhiles, he thought. How different it had all been 15 years ago when Margaret was at the helm and he and Jeffrey vied for the title of the world's greatest storyteller. Freddie checked himself. This was a time for action, not sentiment. Quickly, he rose from his leather armchair and reached for his trusty Mont Blanc pen that had been gathering dust in the recesses of his mahogany desk.

A few hours later, with the first story complete, Freddie poured himself a single malt and allowed himself a few moments' self-congratulation. Who could possibly guess that the rather How his readers will identify when they discover on the last page that the US tourist who hands over a large amount of money to keep alive the memory of a local saint has been suckered and that the story is actually a load of rubbish. The fourth story came to him in the early hours. Not even Customs Excise would work out that the longhaired hippy wasn't the drug mule, but actually the undercover officer. Just one more story to find.

But the master storyteller felt his inspiration drying up. "Could I get away with some hocus pocus about a cowboy who survives the Battle of Little Bighorn, goes to sleep for a century then emerges to get the love of his life pregnant but turns out to have been dead the whole time?" he asked. "I should think so," said his agent. "In which case we are done," replied Freddie, turning to ring his broker. posh barrister who gets the two mindless thugs off a murder charge would turn out to be the good guy after all? Top that, Jeffrey, he said to himself.

Freddie glanced up at the paintings on his wall and felt another surge of creativity. Why had no one ever thought about a story about the art market? Within minutes he had come up with a plot involving not just one, not even two, but three different scams. Sometimes his brilliance amazed even himself. His only slight concern was whether readers would be able to follow all the twists and turns of such delicate plot-ling and realise that the last two scams were the honest-but-poor man's way of getting back at the roguish auction house vice-chairman, but Freddie was in no mood for rewrites. A deep laugh escaped Freddie's throat as he completed the third story.

And if you really are pressed: The digested read, digested Paper-thin plots and cardboard characters from the self-styled world's greatest storyteller 16 The Editor Septpmber 22.