The Pitch: A man has lost his car keys and sets off on a surreal quest to find them.

It's not the sort of gripping narrative to capture the imagination of the likes of Sophie Marceau, Daniel Auteuil or even Eric Cantona.

And, indeed, we see them rudely telling director Laurent Baffie where to stick his clapperboard or - in the case of Marceau - gamely playing along.

Unperturbed, Baffie presses ahead, recruiting actor Daniel Russo as his co-star to help on his search for les elusive clefs.

For ninety minutes, he shoehorns every film-making element - from sex scene to bank robbery - into the mix while deriding its shortcomings.

Occasionally veering off into animation and bolting on a few Chris Morris-style nonsense vox pops for good measure, the idea is to satire the tired conventions of modern cinema.

It works…up to a point. With the feel of silent comedy (the verbal gags are, how shall we put this, a little too French) it relies heavily on the charisma of the two leads.

Art house beret-wearers will smugly tick off the Gallic luminaries - Claude Berri, Vincent Perez, Jean Rochefort - who are in the joke.

But too often Baffie and Russo come over as couple of self-congratulatory luvvies unbelievably pleased with the wacky lampoon they've delivered at the film industry's door.

Perhaps, Slap Them, They're French would have been a better title.

Tim Evans