Michael Shannon turns in another excellent performance as another guy out of the mainstream, this time an introverted hit man nicknamed The Iceman.

Ariel Vroman’s film may be the best American gangster film since GoodFellas, certainly since The Departed, it’s that’s good and that unsettling. The film opens with Shannon stalking and slicing the throat of a guy he has just beaten in a game of pool for insulting the woman he hopes to marry (Winona Ryder). From there the film goes in two directions, his peaceful home life and scary professional undertakings, coming dangerously close to converging until it explodes doing just that.

Based on the true story of a real life contract killer who racked up more than 100 kills from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s when he was captured in an FBI sting while attempting to take his anxious flu ridden wife (Ryder in her best role in decades) to the doctor. Alternately seen in domestic scenes with Ryder and their two adoring daughters and in his cold blooded killings, Shannon is constantly at the top of his game. Best among the supporting cast are Ray Liotta and Robert Davi as mob bosses; Chris Evans as a fellow hit man; James Franco in a bit role as one of Shannon’s victims; David Schwimmer as Liotta’s duplicitous underling and Stephen Dorff as Shannon’s even more volatile brother serving a life sentence for the murder of a 12 year-old girl. It’s strong stuff, but constantly watchable.

The Iceman is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

It’s taken more than half a century for Jack Kerouac’s 1951 autobiographical novel On the Road to reach the screen, but Walter Salles’ film has been worth the wait for the perfect casting of Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Kerouac); Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) and Tom Sturridge as Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg). We’ve seen these characters on screen before but not in a film based on the book that made them icons of the beat generation. Kerouac and Cassady were memorably portrayed by John Heard and Nick Nolte in 1980’s Heart Beat; Cassady by Thomas Jane in 1997’s The Last Time I Committed Suicide and Ginsberg by James Franco in Howl and we hear Daniel Radcliffe in the upcoming Kill Your Darlings.

Salles’ penchant for road films is well established thanks primarily to 1998’s Central Station and 2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries making him the ideal director for this enterprise. He doesn’t disappoint. The novel was more an expression of feeling than a straight narrative and did not give the film makers a lot of meat, which is probably what kept it off the screen for so long. The screenplay concentrates on character development rather than incident to give the film gravitas. Cassady’s family, in particular, was reportedly extremely helpful in fleshing out Cassady’s character.

Kristen Stewart is third billed behind Riley and Hedlund as MaryLou (LuAnne Henderson), Cassady’s mistress and his and Kerouac’s travel companion. The actress, who all too often comes across as a dear caught in the headlights, isn’t half bad in this but the strongest female performance is turned in by Kirsten Dunst as Cassady’s stay at home wife. Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen and Elisabeth Moss are wasted in insubstantial roles.

On the Road is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Add to the junk heap of films relying on CGI (computer generated imagery) and car chases, Louis Letterier’s Now You See Me, a time waster about four magicians (Jesse Eisenberg; Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco) who rob banks while performing on stage in various venues including Las Vegas, New Orleans and New York. Michael Caine as an insurance magnate and Morgan Freeman as a DVD filmmaker are poorly written characters. Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent and Mélanie Laurent as an Interpol agent out to catch them are also poorly written. The “surprise” ending comes out of nowhere.

Now You See Me is available on both Blu-ray and DVD.

René Clair’s definitive film version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None has been given a Blu-ray restoration by VCI which improves on the both image and sound of previous DVD releases of this gem.

Produced in 1945, this was the first and best by far of six big screen versions to date of Christie’s 1939 novel, Ten Little Indians. Most versions, including this one, soften the ending of the novel in which all ten invitees to an isolated island are found dead at the end of the weekend. In this, as in most, there is a faked death which saves the supposed last survivor from having to commit suicide in order to be saved from the hangman’s noose.

The film’s witty script is by Dudley Nichols, an Oscar winner for 1935’s The Informer whose varied credits include 1938’sBringing Up Baby; 1939’s Stagecoach and two more of 1945’s very best films, The Bells of St. Mary’s and Scarlet Street, all distinctly different in style and tone.

The cast of this wonderfully wry whodunit includes Oscar winners Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston; Oscar nominees Roland Young, Mischa Auer and Judith Anderson and Sir C. Aubrey Smith, the year after he received his knighthood for advancing Anglo-American relations. Also on board are Louis Hayward, June Duprez, Richard Haydn and Queenie Leonard.

When they say they don’t make them like they used to, they are often talking about filmed mysteries, the likes of 1945’s And Then There Were None of which are long gone, but thanks to television we mystery buffs have more than enough to keep us enthralled. Two of the best mystery anthologies of recent years include Prime Suspect which has just been given a Blu-ray restoration and Murdoch Mysteries, the sixth season of which is just about to be released on Blu-ray and standard DVD, all previously released seasons already having been released in both formats.

The first of Helen Mirren’s wonderful portrayals of DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect appeared in 1991, the last in 2006. She was nominated for Emmys for all but the first appearance, and won twice for the fourth and seventh (the last) editions. The stories and supporting casts match her brilliance in all of them. The Blu-ray restoration is first rate and a vast improvement over the lackluster appearance of previous DVD releases.

Murdoch Mysteries is a rare treat. Based on Maureen Jennings’ best-selling novels, the stories take place in 1890s and early 1900s Toronto. It was first done as a limited series in 2004 that was good but a bit on the dark side. Revived in 2008 with a different cast, the newer version has a lighter touch and a more believable romantic sub-plot than the original. While both versions are good, the ongoing newer series is sublime.

This week’s new releases include Star Trek Into Darkness and Homeland: The Complete Second Season.