The backwoods American town of Middleton proves anything but a "happy place to live" for a motley assortment of locals.

As midnight approaches on an ordinary summer night a series of seemingly unrelated events transpire to assume a terrifyingly deadly symmetry.

We kick off with drunken driver Jack (Thomas) hitting a pedestrian and doing a runner from an arresting officer who's caught him stuffing the body in the trunk.

Across town a van-load of slackers plough into a young girl (Rachel Leigh Cook) and drive off while her hysterical boyfriend takes potshots at them.

The only problem is one of the lads was "relieving" himself out of a van window on impact...and he's left something personal and very important behind.

The item in question is, of course, his todger and it's the first indication that this is no straightforward thriller but a Tarantino-esque combination of guffaws and gore.

Hilary Swank crops up as Buzzy, a convenience store clerk who finds herself up to her neck in a rigged robbery scam.

Leigh Cook is the cut-price femme fatale with an inventive money-making scheme while Patrick Swayze plays her protective dad, another character who finds himself in deep trouble.

The intertwined fates of this assortment of misfits is impressively juggled by Marcks...but you don't really like any of them.

Structurally, the narrative swerves impresse but the characters are little more than human chess pieces the director moves around at will.

It's ingenious and satisfying viewing...but would have hit harder is we cared about what was happening rather than merely admiring it.

Tim Evans