Peter weirโ€™s spectacularly mounted conflation of a couple of Patrick Oโ€™Brienโ€™s hugely popular seafaring yarns, handsomely set during the Napoleonic Wars, is a rare contemporary example of classic movie storytelling, in which subtle characterisation and well-balanced narrative are as important as gung-ho action sequences and the usual sensory bombardment of the multiplex blockbuster. Russell Crowe, never better, is โ€œLuckyโ€ Jack Aubrey, commander of HMS Surprise, charged with the destruction of the formidable French warship the Acheron (a barely-seen but grimly vindictive phantom). Paul Bettany as the shipโ€™s surgeon is a wry foil to Croweโ€™s noble intransigence, vocally contesting Jackโ€™s growing obsession with the Acheron, to which the Surprise gives long and arduous chase?through fearsome storms, freezing seas and becalmed torpor. As the man said, bloody brilliant.