DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Thornton, Ethan Embry, Rosario Dawson, Cameron Boyce.

JERRY SHAW (LaBeouf) and single mother Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) have never met.

He is grieving the death of his twin, she is concerned about her young son, Sam (Boyce), who is travelling to Washington for an important musical recital.

Both receive similar telephone calls informing them to follow explicit instructions or pay a terrible price.

When the mastermind behind the devious scheme reveals her ultimate goal – for Jerry and Rachel to commit murder – the would-be assassins find themselves on the run from FBI special agents Thomas Morgan (Thornton), Toby Grant (Embry) and Air Force special agent Zoe Perez (Dawson).

The people who could save Jerry and Rachel from their 21st century nightmare are now the very same people who want them dead.

Ludicrously overblown, yet undeniably thrilling, Eagle Eye barely pauses for breath between slam-bang set pieces, intercutting the reluctant heroes’ mission with the efforts of authorities to second guess the next move of these two alleged terrorists.

LaBeouf and Monaghan puff and pant for all their worth in the midst of eye-popping pyrotechnics, generating sparks of sexual tension that only really ignite in the film’s mawkish epilogue.

Thornton brings a spiky charm to his pursuer.

DJ Caruso delivers a series of spectacular set pieces that begins with the arm of a construction crane scything through the side of a building.

But to be engaged by the film, viewers will have to play as dumb as the beleaguered heroes.

As soon as you question the film’s twisted logic, you realise that survival relies too heavily on luck and coincidence.

Rating: ***

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE (Cert 15, 105 mins)Paramount Home Entertainment Comedy/Romance

DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99

Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Megan Fox, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Bill Paterson.

SIDNEY YOUNG (Pegg), is the snide editor of Post Modern Review, a sardonic rebuke to celebrity culture.

So he is stunned when renowned American magazine editor Clayton Harding (Bridges) offers him a correspondent’s position on New York lifestyle bible, Sharps.

Abandoning London for the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, Sidney quickly realises his finely-honed sarcasm doesn’t wash with the locals, not least department head Lawrence Maddox (Huston) and fellow writer Alison (Dunst).

Public relations doyenne Eleanor Johnson (Anderson) is equally unimpressed.

His questionable charm also wards him off rising starlet Sophie Maes (Fox).

Trying to survive in the city that never sleeps, Sidney finds himself torn between feisty Alison and beautiful yet dim Sophie, all the while attempting to woo the great and good of the film industry.

The film is based on Toby Young’s celebrated memoir, How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.

But it is a dull, lifeless mess.

Screenwriter Peter Straughan files down all of the barbs in Young’s confessional, shoehorning the characters into a generic fluffy romantic comedy replete with outlandish set pieces including the protracted death of a pet Chihuahua.

Pegg is a most unlikeable and unsympathetic anti-hero, grating from the very first smug grin, making Dunst’s undernourished love interest seem even more adorable by comparison.

When Alison angrily defends her colleague – “Sidney Young has more going for him than anybody in this place!” – we’re tempted to give the film its first and only laugh, of derision.

Bridges, Huston and co are wasted in thankless supporting roles while Fox pouts and purrs in a succession of slinky, figure-hugging outfits.

Rating: **