Star rating **
Dir: Clark Gregg
With: Sam Rockwell, Kelly Macdonald, Anjelica Huston

You don't expect any picture based on a novel by Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk to be bland. Clark Gregg's riotous comedy drama more than lives up to its end of the bargain, but in the process ends up too clever for its own good. Sam Rockwell, brilliant in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, plays a sex addict and petty conman - his party piece is pretending to choke in restaurants and then milking money and favours from whatever good samaritan saves him. In addition to trying to mend his cheating ways he's having to cope with an ailing and bewildered mother, played by Anjelica Huston, who is resident in a care home where Kelly Macdonald, our ain wee Kelly, works. There are some decent laughs early on, most of them coming from Rockwell's job as a tour guide in a historical theme park, but once the story crosses the line between wacky and plain weird it's a struggle to keep the faith. Macdonald, as in No Country for Old Men, turns in another impressive performance. Whatever she shelled out for that accent coach, if indeed she did, he was worth every dollar.