Stars: Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Danny Aiello, Rod Steiger, Alan Rickman, Harvey Keitel

Director: Pat O'Connor

Summary: A serial killer has New York City in a grip of fear, there have been eleven killings in eleven months. Now it is January and the city is frantic. The mayor believes only one man can find the murderer - former super sleuth Nick Starkey...

An underrated film penned by Oscar winner (Moonstruck) John Patrick Shanley about a modern day Sherlock Holmes asked by his policeman brother to discover a serial killer's identity before he strikes again. His romance with the Mayor's daughter has a touch of poetry that lifts the film above formula.

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The January Manis an odd comedy-thriller about the hunt for a serial killer that could just be a case of too many stars spoil the movie. The screenplay is by John Patrick Shanley, who won an Oscar for Moonstruck. The plot goes like this: a serial killer is terrorising Manhattan, targeting one woman a month, much to the horror of the mayor (a rabid Rod Steiger, more foam than substance) and the police commissioner Frank Starkey (Harvey Keitel). There's only one man to save their bacon: enter Nick Starkey (Kevin Kline), brother of Frank, who had been a cop but was kicked out of the force for his unorthodox ways. Being a heroic kind of guy, his next career move was as a firefighter and we first see him leaping out of a burning building, carrying a child under his arm. Kline agrees to go back on one condition: that he cooks dinner for his brother's wife (the fantastically haughty Susan Sarandon), a former girlfriend for whom he still holds a candle. The pace hots up, Nick finds himself a new girlfriend, the mayor's daughter Bernadette (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), whose main claim to fame is that her best friend was murdered by the serial killer. Oh, and of course he gets the guy, in the nick of time (literally).

Confused? You won't be. The plot is an improbable potion of coincidences and divine inspiration but it's not complicated. Kline overcomes the shortcomings of the script with a charmer of a performance, but the real star is the funny, sly Alan Rickman. The January Manis worth seeing for some very fine individual turns (Sarandon is terrific), but in all honesty, it doesn't add up to a great movie, mainly because it can't quite decide what it wants to be, genre-wise, settling on an uneasy compromise of comedy and thriller.

On the DVD:The January Mandisc has absolutely no-frills. Picture and sound are perfectly adequate without being anything to write home about. And if you're looking for extra goodies, you'll be disappointed: there's the original theatrical trailer and a wide array of subtitle languages, but that's it. --Harriet Smith

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Original Theatrical Trailer, Interactive Menu Screens, Chapter Selections
Subtitles:	Dutch, French, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish
Year:	1988
Release Date:	August 12, 2002
Runtime:	97 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	16186 D V D
Keywords:	Man, General, Wide, Screen, January, Drama
Genre:	Drama