NURSE BETTY

Directed by Neil LaBute. Starring Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Grag Kinnear

At the risk of sounding snotty, I can think of far more appealing ways to spend my time than sitting in darkened cinemas watching people being tied to chairs and brutalised with knives - and while it was far from being awful, Nurse Betty has to rank as the most disappointing film of the year, in view of director Neil LaBute's utterly wonderful early warnings (Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbours).

Thoroughly red-neck Kansas waitress (Zellweger) witnesses the gunning-down of her utterly unappealing husband (LaBute regular and former roommate Aaron Eckhardt, complete with Chris Waddle-heyday mullet haircut) when his amateurish attempts at drug-racketeering go horribly awry. Utterly shell-shocked, Betty slips into her favourite soap-opera as an alternative reality, and heads to LA in search of her supposed fictional televised lover Dr. David Ravell (Kinnear). Meanwhile, her husband's assassins are on her trail, labouring under the delusion that she would still make for a compos-mentis witness.

On paper, it all sounds fine. But Nurse Betty, for all the promise its plot appears to hint at, is utterly devoid of the bitter sparkle that illuminated LaBute's previous tours de force. This, coupled with Zellweger's hopelessly unconvincing lead turn, results in a film that isn't fit to rim the proverbial piles of its predecessors.

Granted, the supporting performances are reasonably rewarding - Morgan Freeman doesn't disgrace himself as the bog-standard this-is-my-last-job hitman, Chris Rock displays uncharacteristic restraint, and Greg Kinnear actually chips in the gig of his lifetime as a slimy soap-opera heart-throb.

While many critics have deplored the allegedly soft-Hollywood ending of the film, and cited it as a sellout on LaBute's part, I found the whole thing unconscionably violent - and if this is the guy at his most mellow, I dread to think what he must be like in his nastier moments. Recommended only to repressed serial-killers.