Lassie

Director: Charles Sturridge

Stars: Jemma Redgrave, John Lynch, Samantha Morton, Steve Pemberton, Peter Dinklage, Peter O'Toole

Year: 2005 Running Time: 100 mins Rating:

CERT: PG

Dogged performances from old stagers including Peter O'Toole to young pup Jonathan Mason ensure this retelling of the classic tale is worth a watch. The collie has to find its way from Scotland back to Yorkshire after being sold on by his dirt-poor owners. Look out for Nicholas Lyndhurst and Gregor Fisher in humorous cameos.

Review

Lassie returns to the big screen in the eleventh film version - but only the second to be based on the original 1940 novel.

Sold on by her skint, coalmining owners to the aristocratic Duke of Rudling (O'Toole mining a vein of pure ham), escape is the only thing on Lassie's mind.

However, when the duke and his grand-daughter head to Scotland on holiday, the pining pooch's long journey home is made more complicated.

Obstacles including fences, traps and lakes are joined by Nicholas Lyndhurst's evil robber and Gregor Fisher's Glaswegian dog-catcher to make her passage that bit more difficult.

Brideshead Revisited's Charles Sturridge directs and there's sterling support from Samantha Morton and John Lynch.