Chances are you'll be humming the songs of Josef Locke after you leave this one. Locke? Ask your parents. He was an Irish tenor who ruled the halls for nigh on 20 years in post-war times until he had to flee the country on tax evasion charges. Around this thread, writer-director Peter Chelsom has woven a decidedly different sort of film. Rotund American actor Ned Beatty enjoys his finest hour since Deliverance as Locke, sought by seedy young Irish-born impresario Micky O'Neill (Adrian Dunbar) on a trip back across the sea to Ireland. O'Neill, pressed by creditors at his nightclub, has tried to pass off a Locke impersonator, to the humiliation of his girlfriend's mother (Shirley Anne Field) who shared an affair with Locke 25 years before. Now Micky must make amends, but finding Locke, never mind persuading him back to England and the vengeful arms of the law (David McCallum), proves a tricky thing. The film sags a bit around half-way, and degenerates into farce at the end, but its heart, definitely in the right place, sees it through. Beatty, unlike some of the cast, never overplays. Field, in her mid Fifties here, is still ravishing.


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