Don't let the title mislead you into thinking Lars Von Trier - Scandinavia's Mr Nasty - has gone all touchy-feely with a nice mushy rom-com.

No, the Wendy in question is a 6.35mm double action, pearl-handled six shooter and object of passion for mining town loser Dick (Bell).

An avowed pacifist, he's come to the rather warped conclusion that if you can forge a meaningful relationship with your piece you'll never need to fire it in anger.

Well, it's a thought. Anyway, he recruits a rag-tag gang of misfits to his cause, nicknaming them The Dandies and swearing them to a rigorous code of conduct.

They include red hot armourer Stevie (speciality: long range accuracy), shopkeeper's daughter Susan (ricochet shots) and crippled teen Hughie (high calibre).

Decking out a disused corner of the town's decaying mine like a Victorian parlour, they celebrate their position as outsiders while glugging bottles of late bottled vintage port.

It seems as idyllic as it can get in a hick town going down the tubes - until the dynamic is skewed by delinquent newcomer Sebastian (Danso Gordon), who's also happened to have killed a man.

Although Thomas Vinterberg takes the director's credit, writer Von Trier's pitch black dabs are all over this off-kilter collision of the Kelly Gang and Lord of the Flies.

The premise of "pacifists with guns" could be the latest liberal provocation by Von Trier, a man who delights in winding up the politically correct, but it does make a serious point.

After all, America very much regards itself a peace-loving nation who just happens to have stockpiles of heavy weaponry that could reduce the world to dust several times over.

And it isn't just Von Trier having one of his time-honoured pops at Uncle Sam - there's also some wonderfully weird humour - check out The Dandies' celebratory "Brideshead Stammer."

Difficult to classify, this oddity - ravishingly shot by Anthony Dod Mantle - raised as many questions as it does laughs.

It also places Britain's Jamie Bell - whose beautifully measured performance carries the movie - in the vanguard of ones-to-watch.

High calibre stuff.

Tim Evans