Big Nothing

Working as a drone in a call centre dealing with IT queries from customers confused by their computers would drive a man to do many things. Even blackmail.

And so it goes with frustrated teacher Charlie Wood (Schwimmer), a wannabe writer who takes the telephone answering job to make ends meet for his police officer wife (Natasha McElhone) and their three-year-old daughter.

He's fired on the first day...but not before he's met fellow caller centre worker Gus (Pegg), a down-on-his-luck dad who needs to find cash to pay for an operation to save his daughter's failing sight.

Gus thinks he's discovered the perfect scam: blackmail the priest who has turned up in the company database of visitors to extremely dodgy porn sites.

But, after pitching the plan to Charlie, things get complicated. Their shady dealing is overheard by Gus's ex - Josie, a skint waitress and Miss Teen Oklahoma, who demands a slice of the action.

Next, when Gus gets to the priest's house to get the cash, events spiral out of control with the body of the dirty rev ending up in the septic tank and his wife slumped in an easy chair with an axe buried in her head.

There's also the question of $2m in cash as well as the body of a passing patrolman who brained himself on the rim of a toilet while trying to flee the scene.

Writer-director Jean-Baptiste Andrea has concocted a tangled knot of false trails, red herrings and dead ends as Charlie is pitted against a couple of consummate con artists - "Bonnie and Clyde. And Clyde".

Jon Polito weighs in with a disturbing performance as a FBI forensic expert but the top honours go to the triple billing of Schwimmer, Pegg and Eve, an often amusing menage-a-trois of double-dealing.

It can get pretty bleak and you get the feeling they've tried to cram too much in but the constant drip-feed of black gags keeps things just the right side of thoroughly distasteful.

Tim Evans