It's the 1950s and Lanny Morris (Bacon) and Vince Collins (Firth) are America's favourite double act, renowned for their nightclub shows and their participation in marathon TV telethons.

Lanny is the sharp-talking Jewish-American lothario while Vince is his stiff-upper-lipped English foil. Their backslapping camaraderie has won them a legion of adoring fans.

And then it all goes wrong. Shy hotel chambermaid Maureen O'Flaherty (Blanchard) is found dead, floating in the bath of their hotel suite after apparently overdosing on a combination of drink and drugs.

The police investigate...but Lanny and Vince have cast iron alibis and witnesses to prove they couldn't have anything to do with the murder. Nevertheless, their career of relentless joshing staggers into freefall and they decide to go their separate ways.

Fifteen years later ambitious reporter Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman) - "a couple of cover stories and a desperate need to prove myself" - approaches the estranged pair, determined to find out what really happened.

This could have fallen from the seedy pages of Hollywood Babylon and owes a little to David Lynch in its debauched cocktail of drink, drugs and sex among America's celebrity elite.

You'd think Bacon and Firth wouldn't have much chemistry as a double act until a sudden act of violence shocks you into the realisation that here water is thicker than blood.

Occasionally, the narrative falters but the dark mood of film noir is consistently maintained and the all-corrupting power of money and fame is only too apparent from Lanny and Vince's seamy lifestyle and connections with the mob.

Director Atom Egoyan's most lavish outing yet, its a beautifully played meditation of the ugly side of life in the Hollywood hills.

Tim Evans