Amanda Peet Shows Star Capabilities In ‘Nine Yards’

Literature and light comedy, blended with a bit of the occult, mark this week of home-entertainment viewing.

The week’s major releases on VHS and/or DVD:

The Whole Nine Yards ***

A Montreal dentist (Matthew Perry) finds a bit of excitement when a hired killer (Bruce Willis) moves in next door. The two becomes friends but then part ways when the dentist’s shrewish wife (Rosanna Arquette) coerces him into selling the hood out to his fellow criminal element. Add in the cool presence of Natasha Henstridge (“Species”) as the killer’s estranged wife, along with Michael Clarke Duncan (“The Green Mile”) and Kevin Pollak (“The Usual Suspects”), and the result is an entertaining, if fairly violent, comedy. The film’s best quality, though, is Amanda Peet, who displays here what is most hard to find: a natural screen charisma that suggests stardom. (VHS/DVD) Rated R.

Angela’s Ashes ** 1/2

Adapting Brooklyn schoolteacher Frank McCourt’s best-selling reminiscence about growing up in Ireland, director Alan Parker has created a film that looks better than it plays. The whole of Irish poverty is represented, from the grimy streets to the harsh schoolteachers, church and government officials. And Parker, with the help of cinematographer Michael Seresin, portrays the country in cool blues and greens. The acting is effective, too, with the three child actors who represent the youthful McCourt — Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens and Michael Legge — holding their own with the likes of stars Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle. But something is missing. Parker’s film is too one-note, missing too much of the rich textures and dark humor that helped make McCourt’s book a runaway literary hit. (VHS/DVD) Rated R.

Mansfield Park ** 1/2

Director Patricia Rozema combines the characters and basic plot of Jane Austen’s third novel “Mansfield Park” with Austen’s own journal entries, and the result is an updated version of the book. Austen fans will still recognize the story of one Fanny Price (Frances O’Connor) coming to have a new, and ultimately improved, life. Removed from her harsh childhood circumstances, Fanny is brought into the wealthy existence of distant relatives — but not accepted as an equal. This stands in the way of her love for her cousin, Edmund (Johnny Lee Miller), which is the resolution the story strives for. A further complication involves Fanny and Edmund being sought out by an overtly ambitious, sometimes lascivious, brother-sister team (Embeth Davidtz, Allessandro Nivola). And then there’s Harold Pinter as Edmund’s father, a good blend of compassion and elitist arrogance.

The problem is not so much how Rozema (“I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”) has adapted Austen’s novel as it is who she has used for the job. O’Connor is fine, while Davidtz and Pinter are superb. But the two male leads, especially Miller, are less men than mere post-adolescents. It seems a crime to waste Fanny on the likes of this Edmund. (VHS/DVD) Rated PG-13.

The Ninth Gate **

Roman Polanski has always stood apart. In a variety of genres, from horror (“Rosemary’s Baby”) to mystery (“Chinatown”), from classic literature (“Tess”) to adaptation of stage plays (“Death and the Maiden”), he has directed memorable, influential films. And this doesn’t include early works such as “Repulsion” and “Knife in the Water,” He’s also had his share of flops (“Pirates”).

“The Ninth Gate,” which has a great look and assured delivery, ranks somewhere in between. It tells the story of a book detective, the morally muddled Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), who is hired by a strange rich guy with the suitably creepy name of Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to authenticate a book. Corso’s search takes him on a tortuous trek throughout Europe that results in several deaths, all done in a style outlined in the book’s illustrations. There the obvious problems with such genre posing: Why does Balkan need Corso? Who is the mysterious presence that protects Corso (Emmanuelle Seigner) and what is her agenda? Where are the cops in all this?

But the real problem is that Polanski, one of four screenwriters (including Arturo Perez-Reverte, the author of the book from which the script was adapted), failed to give his film an ending. What we end up with are questions without answers. (VHS/DVD) Rated R.

What Planet Are You From? **

Mike Nichols may be the most uneven director in recent Hollywood history. On one hand, you have great films such as “The Graduate” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On the other, you have “Biloxi Blues” and “Day of the Dolphin.” On the negative side is the Garry Shandling comedy “What Planet Are You From?,” an extended joke about male-female miscommunication that claims women may be from Earth (instead of Venus) but that men are from a planet four solar systems beyond Mars.

Shandling plays an alien from that planet sent to Earth to impregnate a human woman as a means of creating an advance invasion force. The usual jokes involving sex vs. cuddling, football vs. communication ensue before things devolve into feel-good territory. Shandling, though an acquired taste, ends up being funny, and others — Annette Bening and Greg Kinnear — are even better. But overall, “What Planet Are You From?” is a one-note sonata that is more amusing than truly funny. (VHS/DVD) Rated R.