Writer-director Wayne Kramer tries to dethrone Tony Scott as king of the highly-stylised gore fest in this hugely violent crime thriller.

Paul Walker pockets the string-backed driving gloves of The Fast and the Furious to play a mob henchman whose job it is to dispose of shooters with a dodgy history.

Unfortunately, rather than toss them in the river he stows them in his basement...where they are found by his 10-year-old son and his best buddy Oleg (Bright).

An abused kid, Oleg uses the deadly . 38 to take out his sadistic stepfather Karl Roden...but the gun has a history which is about to catch up with everybody.

Director and writer Wayne Kramer seems to have exchanged the subtle Oscar-nominated character study of The Cooler for basic, in-your-face brutality.

It's a world of pimps, paedophiles, hookers and Russian mobsters who develop a less than charitable use for an ice puck when they want information.

Fusing smart-ass dialogue with headcracking savagery, it does have it's moments...but these tend to feature some poor sap in extreme peril.