The Car Man is choreographer Matthew Bourne's take on the Wild West - a town in midwest America, the sort Clint Eastwood would feel right at home in. A stranger rides into town - with him comes lust, violence and murder. When he leaves the town, it has been changed forever.

The town is called Harmony. The fact that this is set in relatively modern times, about 50 years ago, doesn't change the fact that this is still a Wild West town. The Harmonys of this world never really change.

Matthew Bourne is best known for his radical take on Swan Lake, choreographing it for an all-male cast. This is not so radical. In fact, for much of its length, it seems quite prosaic and tired. The energy level on stage might have made this quite a different experience. But ballet is a hard act to capture successfully on film, and preserve all its excitement.

A gaol scene in particular shows up this problem. What could have been, on stage, interesting contrapuntal movement between the solo male dancer and the caged prisoners behind him (as per Chicago) gets lost in an apparently indiscriminate use of close-up.

The ballet, in its style, reminds me in some respects of Jerome Robbins' West Side Story. Some of the solos and duets are quite effective; the ensemble pieces however are just like Harmony itself - stuck in a Robbinesque time-warp.

The music too seems tired. It is a pastiche made up of bits and pieces from Bizet's Carmen, and suffers from having been used so effectively so often before. Not just in the opera version, but in brilliant and radical re-interpretations such as Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones, Peter Brook's Paris version of Carmen and Carlos Saura's Flamenco Carmen. This pastiche just doesn't do the original justice.

I couldn't recommend this to anyone who is not totally immersed in modern dance. People interested in technique and keen to stay in touch with international dance will want this disc; I can't see it attracting many others.

The anamorphic transfer is excellent quality, and the two soundtracks both work effectively. The surround sound is more spacious but the linear PCM is very punchy and dynamic.

The only extra is a short interview with director and choreographer Matthew Bourne, which is probably worth seeing before viewing the ballet, rather than after, to hear him shed some light on what he was trying to achieve.

The liner gives a running time of 100 minutes. It's in fact 87 minutes; the 100 minutes can be reached only if you add in the bonus interview. There's also a short photo gallery of standard (i.e. less than outstanding) quality.