DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)
ITV1, 8.30pm; except Ulster
The 20th instalment in the OO7 series is a muscular affair from the Kiwi director Lee Tamahori. Pierce Brosnan’s revitalised super-agent greets the new millennium with a greatest hits package of arch references to previous films, including his co-star Halle Berry rising from the sea like Ursula Andress in Doctor No. The flimsy plot, about stolen diamonds and North Korean warlords, is clogged with brazen product placement, but Tamahori directs with style, from the harsh torture scene to the spectacular car chases. (133min)
DEAD CALM (1989)
Five, 10.05pm
Nicole Kidman was headhunted for Hollywood fame after her superb performance in Philip Noyce’s gripping psycho-thriller. Kidman and Sam Neill play a grief-stricken couple whose therapeutic voyage on the South Seas takes a dark turn when they encounter the sinister survivor of a mysterious marine accident (Billy Zane). Based on a novel by Charles Williams, Dead Calm owes a debt to Roman Polanski’s nerve-jangling 1962 debut Knife in the Water. (95min)
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ROAD TRIP (2000)
BBC One, 11.05pm; Scotland, 11.40pm
The comedian Tom Green stars as the improbably named Barry Manilow in this gleefully lowbrow farce about sex-crazed American college students. After his room-mate (Breckin Meyer) unwittingly posts an incriminating video of himself to his long-term girlfriend, Barry (Green) organises a high-speed dash to intercept the package. Road Trip is juvenile nonsense, but the gross-out humour occasionally hits the mark. The director Todd Phillips previously shot an explicit documentary about fraternity houses that was banned after legal intervention by the students’ parents. (93min)
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RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (1954, b/w)
BBC Two, 12.35am
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Shot inside Folsom Prison, California, using real inmates and guards as extras, Riot in Cell Block H is a solid but unsensational B-movie. Rioting prisoners hold their captors hostage in a bid to secure more humane conditions, but politicians and reporters muddy their plans. Several of the cast and crew, including Leo Gordon, had served time behind bars. Sam Peckinpah was the film’s production assistant and it was this son of a well-respected California judge whose family connections helped to secure access to Folsom. (80min)
VANISHING POINT (1971)
ITV1, 12.35am
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One of a slew of counter-culture road movies released after Easy Rider, Richard Sarafian’s cult thriller stars Barry Newman as Kowalski, an emotionally scarred amphetamine addict on a reckless mission to drive a souped-up roadster from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Egged on by a blind DJ (Cleavon Little), Kowalski leads the police across America at breakneck speed. Sarafian’s trashy art movie actually came about because of a product placement deal between 20th Century Fox and Chrysler, who wanted a promotional vehicle for their new Dodge Challenger. (106min)