Alarm bells should start ringing when a member of a successful gang of robbers turns off a TV broadcast about their heist...half-way through.

No-one - not even the thickest tea leaf - would cut short what is basically a telly tribute to their nefarious art before it's finished.

And that's the problem with this crime caper - it repeats the same old cliches, the same scams and inevitably the same mistakes of over a thousand thrillers before it.

Stephen Dorff's Slim leads a slick slacker gang who rely on their extreme sports skills - roller-blading, skydiving and rock-climbing - to stay one step ahead of the law.

The law here is hardboiled cop MacGruder (Payne) who wants to avoid egg on his face by nailing the gang before things get too embarrassing.

However, with almost insolent ease, the foursome carry out a series of daring raids on security trucks and banks...and without anyone getting hurt.

This is a bit Ocean's One - the action is accomplished if routine but the characterisation and plot seems to have been sketched out on the back of a beer mat as an afterthought.

The romantic angle, such as it is. is the sort of wish-fulfillment (a sweat-drenched Natasha Henstridge in a sauna) furtively dreamt up by Loaded readers under the bedclothes.

Humour is provided by the ever-reliable histrionics of Berkoff, who plays a hellfire and brimstone preacher-come-underground heavy who takes his hairstyling lead from Elvis.

Admittedly, the setpieces are pretty nifty - particularly a bank truck raid on a bridge hundreds of feet above a river - but it's all rather undermined by a plot that makes no sense at all.

Still, it's target audience of pimply youths with large trousers will no doubt lap it up.

Tim Evans