The final shootout almost recovers it for Avary. Its excess and deliberate stupidity -- in slow-mo would you believe? -- make for an almost Peckinpah moment. Almost.

It sweeps you up in Eric's Dionysian revelry and, like Zed, you'll be clambering for a shower afterwards.

I am not slamming this Roger Avary film for not being a Quentin Tarantino film. I am slamming it for not being a good Roger Avary film.

An ultra-violent but vapid crime caper that owes as much to Tarantino as to film noir, both American and French.