VideoView -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

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Movies

"The Fast and the Furious" -- This is one of those full-throttle, fasten-your-seatbelt movies, one full of mad dashes and crashes, fancy super-charged speed monsters roaring through dark empty streets, their likewise charged-up drivers gunning it to the max. It's about underground racing and undercover cops and unlikely friendships. Vin Diesel, an actor to watch, stars as Dominic, fastest of the fast, and Paul Walker is the outsider Brian, actually a cop who infiltrates the racing gang. A good-looking cast of mostly unknowns whose characters are more than just cardboard cutouts. Not a great movie, but one that's quite entertaining even if you don't know a fuel pump from a door handle. 2001. 106 minutes. Universal Studios Home Video. Rated PG-13 (violence, sexual content, language).

"What's The Worst That Could Happen?" -- Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito co-star in this tepid comedy that poses a question in its title and then spends the rest of the movie trying to answer it. Lawrence plays a professional thief caught trying to rob the supposedly vacant mansion of ruthless billionaire DeVito, a wily crook himself, who not only turns him over to police but steals his diamond ring as well. Determined to retrieve at any cost the ring his new girlfriend had just given him, Lawrence sets out to ruin the smirking, devious mogul who's gleefully ready to reciprocate. There are some chuckles but few guffaws. 2001 98 minutes. MGM Home Entertainment. Rated PG-13 (language and sexual content).

"Greenfingers" -- In this inviting, low-key British comedy, a group of hardened convicts become gardeners at an experimental minimum security prison and find, to their surprise, that they like it. And when the taciturn Colin Briggs (Clive Owen) shows an aptitude for growing flowers, the warden puts him in charge of a team to create a garden on the prison grounds. His startling handiwork brings him to the attention of celebrity author and gardener Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren) who guides him toward a prestigious flower show. There are problems ahead but you know good luck is going to bloom for these lads. Pleasant and amusing. 2001. 90 minutes. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Rated R (language and some sexuality).

"Brother" -- Beat Takeshi, the weathered, poker-faced Japanese action star, plays a Yakuza mobster who flees to the U.S. to escape a gang war back home and picks up where he left off in this violent crime drama. Once here, Takeshi's character, Yamamoto, teams up with a half-brother (Claude Mahi) and his African-American partner (Omar Epps) with others in a drug ring. Things get rather nasty at times and Yamamoto has this yen to deal with anyone he disagrees with by simply eliminating him. Soon the gang is riding high but headed, naturally, for a fall. This is the work of director-writer Takeshi Kitano, a legend in Japan now seeking an American audience with this film that's mostly in English. Kitano's also the star, changing his name to separate the duties. 2001. 113 minutes. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Rated R (pervasive, strong violence, language, brief nudity).

VIDBITS

"Rush Hour 2" tops the video rental charts this week... Coming up next: the horror movie "Jeepers Creepers," "The Glass House" and "The Man Who Cried"...

Also coming up in January: "American Pie 2," "Rat Race," "Tortilla Soup," "The Anniversary Party" and "Glitter" on Jan. 15; "Kiss of the Dragon," "An American Rhapsody," "Rock Star," "Bully"and "Bubble Boy" on the 22nd and "Atlantis: the Lost Empire," "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" and "The Princess and the Warrior"...

Among the tentative February dates: "Corporal Corelli's Mandolin" on Feb. 12 and "Don't Say a Word" and "Hearts in Atlantis" Feb. 19... Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" is set for a March 5 video date...

Entertainment Weekly picks "Citizen Kane" and "The Godfather" as the best DVD releases this year... no argument there... and chooses "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" as the worst...