year, film makers seem to have developed a penchant for shooting London gangster movies.

I'm not accusing director Simon Marshall of jumping on the bandwagon -- no doubt the seed of the idea behind `Out of Depth' was already developing long before the genre became popular -- but the film's general storyline isn't exactly original all the same.

The plot follows an ambitious young graphic designer, Paul Nixon (played by Sean Maguire) who, although born on the wrong side of the river, is now doing very nicely thank you very much, thanks to his glamorous job and even more glamorous girlfriend. But of course it's impossible to totally forget your roots and an incident in which Nixon's still-working-class Mum is left frightened and humiliated soon sucks the central character back into the world that he thought he'd escaped from -- with the inevitably disastrous consequences.

All fairly predictable enough but nevertheless not a bad storyline. But while the plot may be just about strong enough to hold your attention for an hour or so, it is undermined by other disappointing elements of the film, namely the script and the acting.

Marshall, who was also responsible for the screenplay as well as directing, starts off in uncompromisingly realistic mode which is refreshing and direct, the dialogue rich and earthy.

But after a while, as the ratio of obscenities increases, his characters (particularly the more villainous ones) become laughable, irritating cliches.

Anybody who has chortled away at the `Big Vern' cartoon strip in the adult comic `Viz' will know exactly what I mean.

Sean Maguire is not a bad actor at all but the supporting cast fails to do just that -- support. Some of the acting really is quite appalling, which is perhaps one twist in this film that you don't expect, considering the line-up of experienced actors. (Nixon's Mum, played by Rita Tushingham, might not actually be a gangster's moll but her performance here certainly is criminal.) Like the script, the acting is just far too self conscious, too contrived.

Both stop the viewer from being drawn into the film and make the characters just too unbelievable.

There are one or two pluses -- the film has a suitable dark, grainy look and the nervous tension of one or two scenes is built up effectively enough. Apart from that, it's difficult to develop any sympathy for Marshall's characters.

By the end I didn't really care whether Nixon managed to emerge from his brush with the underworld triumphant or met his fate in a painful encounter with Mr.

Big in the shower rooms of Wormwood Scrubs.

I kept on waiting for a commercial break to stop the tedium. Sadly, there wasn't any.

Gareth Finighan MOVIES MPC