Perrier's bounty

Another star-studded home-grown feature film from the UK and/or Eire. Will its cast include Jim Broadbent and/or Brendan Gleeson? Of course; both, and Cillian Murphy. Will it be a gangster thriller/chase? Another silly question; thankfully, there are some surprises in Perrier's Bounty, starting with its title. If an Irish gang boss is called Perrier, you can guess the movie is a comic caper trading on Brendan Gleeson's star role In Bruges.

He's announced a bounty for the capture of a late-paying loan-taking minor hoodlum (Murphy), whose sleep-repressing coke-snorting dad (Broadbent in splendid form) turns up coincidentally. So does the end of an affair for a downstairs neighbour, an English girl (Jodie Venus Whittaker). When she accidentally kills a bounty hunter, the accidental trio of anti-heroes are pursued across Dublin by Perrier and his gang (including the dead goon's gay partner), a pair of professional burglars who'd tried to cheat Murphy, and Garda cops.

Screenwriter Mark O'Rowe (Boy A) adds a load of rhythmic Blarney, warrior dogs and the voice of Gabriel Byrne (as the Grim Reaper) to the mildly intoxicating brew, which is directed effectively in understated Richie style (that is, in a less flashy and jump-cutty manner) by Irish TV veteran and movie newcomer Ian Fitzgibbon.

An above-average example of entertaining nonsense, this is a movie that deserves to be seen only for one good reason: Broadbent playing superbly with an Irish accent, comic facial expressions and charismatic body language.