The Battle of Algiers Gillo Pontecorvo (nc) love jones Theodore Witcher (15)

Time has dulled neither the rage nor the compassion of Gillo Pontecorvo's 1965 drama The Battle of Algiers, which earns a revival this week at the ICA in London. If you haven't already seen this astonishing film, you may still find its style familiar - its influence can be detected in everything from Z to La Haine, Salvador to Land and Freedom. It is the work by which all other attempts at political cinema must be judged. What's more, it also happens to be a damn fine thriller.

In his reconstruction of the Algerians' struggle to attain freedom from France, Pontecorvo integrates two disparate styles. He immediately establishes a riveting narrative: Ali la Pointe (Brahim Hagiag) is hiding from paratroopers who threaten to obliterate him if his surrender is not forthcoming. A dissolve takes us back three years to 1954, where we witness Ali's rise from petty crook to pivotal member of the Algerian Liberation Front. Although the use of flashback has already established that we are witnessing a fictionalised version of truth, Pontecorvo then introduces documentary techniques into the film, using on-the-hoof photography and jerky zooms that position us right on the brink of this ramshackle war.

It's the fusion of these styles that makes the picture so explosive, and prevents it from becoming a history lecture. Once we have been drawn into the illusion of documentary, Pontecorvo is then free to manipulate our expectations with dramatic devices, which would be impossible to sustain if this really were front-line reportage. The sequence in which a group of Algerian women smuggle bombs into public places is an explicit example, with its dramatic shots of ticking clocks and nervous faces lent weight by the grainy, ragged verite style. Pontecorvo is equitable with his characters, regardless of their allegiances, and finds room for some sly humour: the breathless momentum of one montage, where various assassins locate guns that have been planted in the most unlikely places, produces a tense comedy of horrors.

Quite simply, you must not miss The Battle of Algiers if you are remotely interested in cinema, politics, history or humanity. Now, did I leave anyone out?

You know what you're getting with love jones. In this romantic comedy, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, then girl finds boy hanging out at the local poetry club's open mic night. The movie's appeal lies in the enthusiasm of its cast, and the sharp screenplay by the first-time writer / director Theodore Witcher. And you're impressed by the fact that it allows its black characters the chance to exist in an authentically middle-class, intellectual milieu from which they have been largely excluded by cinema, and still manages not to turn them into miniature Cosbys.

Larenz Tate plays Darius, the star performer at The Sanctuary, a beatniks' hang-out. There, he reads his poetry, which is studded with such colourful images as "the distorted, contorted, metaphorical jism". Pretentious, him? Despite his way with words, a photographer named Nina (Nia Long) falls in love with him, and they begin a relationship that you know has got potential from the moment he makes her breakfast. But it's not to be. Darius and Nina both play it a touch too cool, feigning disinterest until they lose each other - but not for good.

Admittedly, the picture is short on emotional complexity but it's intelligent and often very funny, not to mention dangerously sexy - just check your temperature as you watch the scene where Darius and Nina meet again after breaking up, gallantly exercising restraint by sleeping in separate rooms, only to thrash around in celibate frustration as the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra's robust, brassy stomp through "Jelly, Jelly" throbs on the soundtrack.

It helps, of course, that both leads drip sex. Long prowls the screen, clearly aware of how rare it is for an actress to be offered a part which is sexual but neither submissive nor threatening. And Tate is in possession of an enviable pair of sleepy, inviting eyes that are not so much "come to bed" as "come back to bed, I haven't finished with you yet"n

Both films on release from tomorrow