Like a sort of American Ken Loach or Mike Leigh, John Sayles is one of the few US directors who can genuinely prove to be a thorn in the side.

A determined non-player of the Hollywood game, his movies touch on commercially taboo subjects such as racism, political corruption and good, old-fashioned socialism.

Here the target of his acidic gaze is the backslapping venality of Bush-style White House regimes with anti-democratic deals sealed in the boardroom rather than the House of Representatives.

Rambling right-wing Senator Dickie Pilager (Cooper) entertains hopes of becoming local governor with the help of his ferociously sussed campaign manager Chuck Raven (Dreyfuss).

However, when Pilager - posing as a good ole country boy casting a rod - hooks a corpse floating in a lake during a photo shoot for his campaign, Raven suspects dirty tricks and calls in private detective Danny O'Brien to get to the bottom of it.

It soon becomes clear that the dead man was an illegal immigrant... and that he was connected, albeit tenuously, to industrialists preoccupied with redeveloping the former coalmining town of Silver City. They're also linked to Pilager himself.

Sayles has concocted a typically dense cocktail of political chicanery, environmental destruction and even good old film noir.

He hasn't quit got Altman's touch for marshalling an impressive cast - Tim Roth, Thora Birch and Daryl Hannah are also present and correct - but the script sparkles with cynical one-liners.

Huston - one of America's most underrated actors - looks a little uncomfortable as the investigator but Cooper effortlessly nails the dithering inarticulacy married to homespun philosophy spouted by the likes of Bush and Reagan.

The final impression is not one of outrage but a sort of quiet resignation that this is the way things are... and this is the way things are going to stay no matter who's in power.

A brave, noble little movie carrying a pessimistic message.

Tim Evans