DVDs In Brief: January 18, 2011

Set in 19th-century Portugal, Raúl Ruiz’s four-and-a-half-hour epic Mysteries Of Lisbon (Music Box), originally produced for television, follows a bastard boy and a kindly priest through a plot that spans decades and involves pirates, thieves, and slave-traders, as well as upper-crust society. As with Ruiz’s 1999 version of Proust’s Time Regained, the adaptation is sometimes diffuse and long-winded, but more frequently brilliant, characterized by visual invention and full-blooded melodrama…

The God-fearing folks behind the Kirk Cameron marital-tip-filled smash Fireproof hit it big at the box office again with Courageous (Sony), a painfully earnest Christian drama about a group of cops who discover that being an upstanding husband, father, and Christian is the toughest and most rewarding job of all. Courageous preaches unmistakably to a vast choir, which helps explain its incredible commercial success…

Taylor Lautner took a brief break from portraying a shirtless, glowering werewolf in the Twilight films to headline the instantly forgettable action-drama Abduction (Lionsgate). The film’s premise has potential—Lautner plays an aimless teen who discovers his entire life has been a lie, and goes on the run—but slumming director John Singleton eschews soul-searching or even a moment’s reflection in favor of an endless series of interchangeable action sequences.