An amiable, wry and insightful writer-director debut for actor Steve Buscemi, about a group of world-weary slackers who loaf about talking and drinking in the Trees Lounge bar. The appealing Buscemi enjoys himself in the star part as a genial no-hoper, dead-beat and womaniser - and there's something deviously winning, in a wildly offbeat sort of way, about his charms. It depends on how much you go for Steve personally and for his commendably strange, dark sense of humour, but this is an intense, hard-to-dislike film from the excellent American independent sector, with a pleasantly sour taste to savour. Cheaply made but smart-looking. Samuel L Jackson and Mimi Rogers make unbilled appearances.

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