On the surface, this visceral crime thriller from Bride of Chucky director Ronny Yu is merely an exercise in noisy excess, and yet several elements mark it out as something slightly unusual. For openers, the script about a master chemist trying to sell the ultimate in designer drugs was sent to Samuel L Jackson by a first-time writer and off-licence worker (Stel Pavlou), and then given the go-ahead. On top of that, it's set in less than glamorous Liverpool; streetwise Jackson's pharmacist hero wears a kilt; and antagonistic sidekick Robert Carlyle is a rabid football fan who's only in it for a prized match ticket, not the money. It's these tongue-in-cheek details - and familiar Liverpudlian faces from TV shows such as Brookside - that add a touch of freshness to a fairly mindless film. Rhys Ifans's eccentric crime lord and Emily Mortimer's sexy hitwoman don't ring true at all, but gritty realism isn't on the agenda here.

An American master chemist plans to score big on a once in a lifetime drug deal. All does not go as planned and he is soon entangled in a web of deceit.