Feminist icon Adrian Lyne – that’s the guy who directed 91/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Lolita – continues on his maverick trailblazing path with this unintentionally hilarious ‘erotic thriller’ starring youthful next-best-things Diane Lane and Richard Gere.

Plot: rich, successful businesman Edward (Gere) and his wife/ beneficiary Connie (Lane) have an apparently perfect marriage, house and son, but in the nature of things, she takes to having her brains fucked out by a brooding, Ginola-esque Gallic stud (Olivier Martinez) with no strings attached etc. etc. When Gere finds out, he is a mite miffed, and tracks down the philandering frog with tragicomic consequences.

As erotica goes, this movie is only rivalled by the current Fine Gael leadership contest, and it would appear Lyne can no longer trot out a by-the-numbers bunny-boiler like he used to. As a result, Unfaithful nearly cuts it as a can’t-miss comedy, with the single most hilarious sex scene since Kingpin taking place in the bogs of a Soho coffee-shop.

Laughable in the extreme.