Promising `murder, money and mayhem' and the `loyalties of love', `Looking for Leonard' does just that. It promises but never quite delivers the goods. And as for Looking for Leonard, you stand no chance as there are virtually no other people in the film.

That's not to say the film didn't have its moments, it was just that they were short-lived and thinly interspersed through a very average film.

Jo is one part of a trio of inept robbers who seem to specialise in holding up corner shops - very badly. So badly that it's amusing. Jo is the girlfriend of one of the other robbers, whose stupid younger brother makes up the final third.

She spends her days, between robberies that is, with her head in books, dreaming of becoming an author, while her man is planning the gang's promotion to the big league of bank jobs.

Meanwhile, Luka, the `handsome, mysterious foreigner' is arriving to work in Montreal from overseas. He continues in his parallel world until he and Jo bump into each other in a store, where she is doing a bit of shoplifting training.

Fast forward, they spend an afternoon together ... then an evening. Everything is going fine until boyfriend's brother discovers them in a clinch together. He and Luka fight, she bangs nosy brother on the head and lo and behold there is a corpse on the carpet. Luka does a runner, only he leaves his wallet behind and wakes up the next day to find himself framed for the murder.

From then on there are some twists and turns along the way, and Jo does provide an aloof and demure love interest, to keep you interested for a time but it just won't leave you talking about it afterwards.

@EDITRULE:

Supporting short: Mean People Suck, directed by Matthew Cole Weiss.

Maybe Hollywood should make all films under ten minutes because on this showing it provides good entertainment.

Three high school kids meet in a diner and reveal the worst things they have ever done. For the first seven minutes of the film you will sit appalled and wonder why on earth this is good viewing. Kate eggs Casey and Nick on to outdo each other in the malicious stakes, promising a small prize in return. Their revelations will disturb and unnerve you as you wonder if all teenagers are really like this.

Amazingly there is a happy ending and Mean People Suck becomes eight minutes worth watching. If you decide you don't want to look and close your eyes there's three cracking tunes to listen to.

@EDITRULE:

Shown Times: Wednesday, April 17 at 9 p.m. at the Liberty Theatre

Tim Greenfield