TV PICKS OF THE WEEK By Lisa Jewell

Our top telly choices for the week ahead

Film – A Few Good Men

Tuesday 22 August, 9pm, Sky 1

An oldie but a goodie – hard to believe that this courtroom thriller was released 25 years ago. Tom Cruise plays a naval lieutenant who is entrusted with a court-martial case of two marines accused of murder. But is everything as it seems or is there a cover up going on…and who’s implicated in it? Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak and Kiefer Sutherland also appear but the scene stealer is Jack ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’ Nicholson.

Film – Unbroken

Wednesday 23 August, 9.35pm, RTE1

A biopic that chronicles the incredible life of Louis Zamperini who competed as a runner in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and went on to join the US Airforce during World War Two. He was shot down over the Pacific and was marooned on a life raft with two comrades for six weeks. Being rescued from shark infested waters and starvation may have seemed like a dream come true but the rescuers were Japanese and Zamperini’s fate was a torturous Prisoner of War camp.

This Angelina Jolie directed film performed really well at the box office and its stars – including Jack O’Connell and Domhnall Gleeson – turn in convincing performances. The story itself is gripping but the only criticism of the film is that it’s overly long, especially apparent in the later stages. Still well worth a watch though.

Documentary – Scannal

Friday 25 August, 6.30pm, RTE1

One of the gems of the RTE schedule is the Scannal series of documentaries that takes a look at scandals that shocked the nation. This repeat showing focuses on the Sallins mail train robbery in 1976, when £200,000 was robbed while in transit on the train.

The scandal is what happened in the aftermath – what is still the longest criminal trial in the history of the State, allegations of Garda brutality and a landmark miscarriage of justice. The film particularly follows what happened to one of the wrongly convicted men, Nicky Kelly, in the years after the trial.