Like steaks, skyscrapers and long-running sitcoms, the con trick caper is the sort of thing probably best left to the Americans.

Unfortunately, British debut director Marc Munden has a crack at the overheated genre and cooks up a collapsed souffle of a story.

Grifter tales need bluff and counter-bluff as well as the unexpected. The big surprise here is that they were able to con anyone into financing it at all.

In a piece of miscasting that would make Roy Chubby Brown a conservative bet to play the Queen Mother, Christina Ricci stars as the ice cool vamp.

When we first see she's hanging around a condemned public library somewhere in London while librarian Frank (Simm) shoots her loving looks from afar.

Where Miranda (Ricci) should be intriguing us as a sleek sexual predator, she looks more like she's waiting for her mum to pick her up from the bus stop.

Anyway, she agrees to go out with Frank on a date and before you can say "lottery grant" they're testing the load-bearing properties of his sofa.

Frank is smitten...but he doesn't know about Miranda's sleazy mentor Christian (Hurt) or the next "mark" for her career as a con artist - glowering Kyle MacLachan.

If you ignore the clumsy styling, soulless location work and dreadful dialogue, you'll only find yourself getting depressed by a cast who really should know better.

The only one to come out of this with any credit is Julian Rhind-Tutt, whose consistently drole kung-fu obsessed sidekick is about the only example of genuine humour.

"It's the best night I've ever had," a breathless Frank gushes to Miranda. "You should get out more," is the reply - advice worth taking up by anyone planning to see this.

Tim Evans