Picture a knackered jalopy misfiring on all cylinders, lurching from one pile-up to the next and spewing foul fumes as it lumbers inevitably to the breaker's yard.

Then think of the cinema equivalent.

Neil Brennan's comedy debut features a starting grid of talent including Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, Kathryn Hahn (a sort of cheap rate Jennifer Coolidge) David Koechner and Ed Helms...and then leaves them to flounder embarrassingly.

It's a bit like giving a middling Jim Davidson script to Stephen Fry and then getting a couple of strippers to take their tops off to take your mind off the malfunctioning gags.

Piven joylessly occupies the sort of role that even Four Christmases era Vince Vaughn would turn down while Rhames and Koechner flail helplessly with parts that have less oomph than a 1972 Ford Granada.

The dialogue - a laboured string of gross-out gags - is dismal and the plot - a hackneyed riff on the underdog coming back to win the girl - has all the grim predictability of a car showroom spiel.

Motor-mouthed Don Ready (Piven) leads a salty troupe of crack sales reps who answer the call to save the failing dealership of Ben Selleck (James Brolin).

His arch-rival Stu Harding (Thicke) is closing in and wants to convert the used car lot into a recording studio for his boy band-fronting son Paxton (Helms).

This never gets out of first gear...and the clowning glory sealing its fate as an MoT failure is the appearance of Will Ferrell as a celestial twit.

Tim Evans