It is with the deepest regret, then, that I inform you of the presence of Blur, Catatonia, Supergrass, Prodigy and a host of other rock luminaries in House of America, every name a nail in the coffin of Marc Evans's ambitious but ultimately disappointing adaptation of Edward Thomas's stage play. As the suspense dissipates, so Spacey seems to have less and less conviction in his screenplay.2/5House of America (15), First Independent (available to rent 9 March)With the honourable exception of Trainspotting, it's safe to say that the quality of a British film in the Nineties is in strict inverse proportion to the number of Britpop songs on the soundtrack. Perhaps prompted by the actor in him, Spacey gives everyone a little too much space, however, failing to crank up the tension. If you're in any doubt which discipline comes out on top, the sub-Blakean opening sequence is a big clue.2/5Albino Alligator (18), Columbia Tristar Home Video (available to rent now)Three edgy, heavily-armed criminals cornered by the police. It's the standard failed-heist remit, chief among whose qualities is the plot-by- numbers structure. So why does Kevin Spacey come over all tricksy in his directorial debut? Brothers Matt Dillon and Gary Sinise, along with psychopathic strong-arm William Fichtner, wind up in Dino's Last Chance Bar, reluctantly holding a clutch of regulars to ransom - the only twist being that the cops think that someone else entirely is barking out the ransom demands. Faye Dunaway looks below her station as a part-time bar keep, but heads a strong cast.

Dillon is impressive as the decent crook, torn between filial loyalty to Sinise, the brains of the outfit, and Fichtner, intent on going down with all guns blazing. Having put this kink in the works, Spacey then doesn't seem sure how to oil them. Contact (PG), Warner Home Video (available to rent from today) Robert Zemeckis has been coming over all ecumenical in recent years, and his films are the worse for it. Forrest Gump turned out to be a dumbed- down, redneck Passion story, and now we're receiving instruction in his third-hand West Coast mysticism via Contact, Zemeckis's sluggish adaptation of Carl Sagan's tale of extraterrestrial redemption. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) appears to have thrown away a glittering career in astronomy to search for signs of galaxy-mates when the instructions for a DIY deep-space runabout are beamed straight into her laptop. "The most profoundly impactful moment in the history of history," according to Ellie, and that's about as well-articulated as Contact gets. Most of the film's two-and-a-half hours are consumed tediously with the exploitation of Foster's interstellar Meccano by self-interested governments and private concerns. There are a few distractions, notably, John Hurt as an Uncle Fester-lookalike tycoon, but Foster's affair with Matthew McConnaughey's drop-out Priest is the crudest example of Zemeckis's overriding theme: the conflict of science and spirituality.

He shifted projects in an already crowded schedule so that he could work with Van Sant - a director whose films, including Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho - he greatly admired."Good Will Hunting is a battle of wills," he says. "It's a love story with four different parties vying for Will's soul. There's so much going on in any given scene, it's layered in many ways and was a joy to work on."Perhaps one of the best things about his performance in Good Will Hunting is that he didn't get to play a child. In this film at least, Robin Williams is all grown up.'Good Will Hunting' opens today. You can also keep it separate and create a character without always having to be like 'this is me!' It's been a good thing for me to do over the years, really good."Perhaps his own experience of therapy helped him with his role as Sean McGuire, the bruised and battered college professor and therapist who has tried to survive his own emotional upheaval (the death of his wife) and attempts to help the young Will Hunting (Matt Damon) overcome his own demons.Once he had read the script, Williams hardly needed convincing that this was a role, professionally speaking, to die for. "She's very funny - like a combination of Neil Simon and Dostoevsky.My father was a very elegant man, a very ethical man and making Father's Day brought back a lot of memories of him.

I thought about him a lot and what he meant to me."He was one of those fathers, like a lot of fathers in the Fifties and Sixties, who worked their asses off and they weren't always there because they were away working. But the nice thing was that I did get to know him later and he was wonderful, a really nice man. "I was in the right place at the right time with the right teacher, who was this wonderful woman who inspired me.After a year he left and won a place at the prestigious Juilliard Theatre School in New York and from there began to work as a stand-up comedian.He believes he inherited his sense of humour from his mother "She has a very strange sense of humour," he says. "The truth is you do better work the more comfortable you are with who you are. You can comment and explore different things rather than always trying to cover it up. And that was great - it saves you years of therapy."Therapy is something that Williams has experienced himself.