4.3.2.1.

Directed by Noel Clarke. Starring Emma Roberts, Ophelia Lovibond, Shanika Warren-Markland, Tamsin Egerton 15A cert, gen release, 117 min

NOEL CLARKE, the young British director of Adulthood, attempts to break into the mainstream with this stubbornly disorienting, occasionally rather dubious tale of four girls in different sorts of trouble.

There’s no question that Clarke possesses a degree of directorial flair. Indeed, his reputation is now such that he has managed to coax the odd Yank celebrity (look out for Kevin Smith and Mandy Pantinkin) into his wildly busy ensemble piece. But the film is just too disorganised and creepy to pass muster.

4.3.2.1.comprises four stories that take place over the same time period. Emma Roberts turns up as a sad, disoriented American. Tamsin Egerton plays a pianist who encounters disaster when she travels to New York for an audition.

The magnificently named Ophelia Lovibond finds herself buffeted from scenes of familial disharmony into a thriller scenario – leather-clad killers and angrily brandished revolvers – that would have caused even Modesty Blaise

to draw worried breath. Shanika Warren-Markland plays a tough chick who, conveniently for lowbrow male viewers, indulges in the sort of unconvincing lesbian love romps you’d expect to find described in letters to “gentlemen’s magazines”.

There are moments worth savouring. Smith is on good form as the tubby Samaritan who helps (or does he?) Egerton out of a very tricky jam. Lovibond almost manages to make something out of her roaringly absurd segment.

However, the sickeningly blotchy cinematography, arch electronic music and mannered camera moves fast become deeply irritating. This is the sort of bogus cool that Northern Irish road safety bodies ape for public information films aimed at pesky youths.

Moreover, no properly hip person is going to fall for a film that allows such outrageous, preposterous, absurd (honestly, you have no idea) product placement for a popular brand of crisp. We won’t mention the name, but they come in tubes.