Clive Owen is Charlie Schine, an advertising hotshot in a joyless marriage with a diabetic teenager daughter on to her third kidney.

Jennifer Aniston plays Lucinda Harris, an army brat-turned-corporate high-flier trapped in a suburban dead-end with her golf-playing hubbie.

Their eyes meet across a crowded Chicago commuter train and before you can say "Celia Johnson" they're swigging slammers in a downtown cocktail bar.

Mutual disatisfaction with their moribund married lives (and a barrel of bourbon) leads to a seedy hotel for a bit of extra-marital gratification.

However, their illicit reverie is spoilt when swaggering thug Vincent Cassel breaks in, bops Charlie and rapes Lucinda.

Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom's English-speaking debut is helped by fine peformances from Owen and Aniston as the ill-starred adulterers.

Never less than gripping, the action whips along at a relentless pace with Cassel extorting $100,000 from Charlie - cash he's earmarked for his daughter's treatment.

However, events get evermore outlandish when Charlie recruits office homie and Snoop Dogg-clone Winston (RZA) to turn the tables.

Cassel makes a pitch for Christopher Walken's wacky psycho crown with an unhinged performance as the French villain even Inspector Clouseau would dismiss as being too silly.

However, he does memorably insult the resilient Charlie as an "upper-crust, mother-f****r". Top swearing.

By the end this has not so much derailed as gone completely off the tracks.

But for a good deal of the journey it's worth the price of a Family Railcard.

Tim Evans