Oliver Stone is back to his gritty, conflicted and violent roots. About time.

Two pretty boy pot growers, Chon and Ben (Kitsch and Johnson, respectively), have their naïve way of life thrown into turmoil when their communal girlfriend (Lively) is kidnapped by a Mexican cartel in a bid to knock out the competition. Rather than roll over to the cartel's demands the pair head out to confront the cartel head on, drawing on Chon's military background, Ben's la-de-dah education and roping in another chum along the way (Emile Hirsch). In their way stands a corrupt DEA agent (Travolta), and the cartel's heavies (Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro).

Conveniently forgetting about Alexander, it has been nearly 20 years since Oliver Stone has gotten his great big action drama thing on. This ensemble film, based on a cult novel by Don Winslow, certainly hopes to remind us what he used to be able to deliver. Expect Natural Born Killers meets U Turn with the breadth of Any Given Sunday, and some great performances from the ensemble of cult actors.

18 years after Muriel's Wedding, director P.

J. Hogan and lead actress Toni Collette are reunited for Mental - a comedy which reads scarily like an adaptation of "The Nanny" for the big screen but thankfully isn't.

Barry Moochmore (LaPaglia) is a philandering politician who is more interested in pursuing his political and extra-marital interests than supporting his wife Shirley (Gibney). When the stress of trying to raise five daughters without her husband's support finally overcomes Shirley, she suffers a nervous breakdown and is taken to a mental hospital for treatment. Barry is now a single parent of 5 girls... a role he is not overly familiar with.

The answer, naturally, is to run into and impulsively hire hitchhiker Shaz as nanny to his five girls (Shirley, Barry and Shaz - could this get any more Australian? Yes - Liev Schreiber plays Trevor). Shaz is very different to any authority figure the girls have seen before - loud, outgoing, fiercely independent and impulsive. Have they replaced one mental case for another? Or is Shaz exactly what this family needs - and is this family exactly what Shaz has been looking for?

Mental treads familiar fish-out-of-water ground but it doesn't care - it treads it with real heart and a beaming smile on its face. Just like that wedding 18 years ago, it's hard not to have a good time here.