Dear Wendy

"Suddenly I was the kind of person with guns," says Dick (Jamie Bell) early on in the voice-over narration to Dear Wendy. His surprise is understandable; an unassuming youth, Dick is thoughtful, introverted and inclined to the poetic. Soon, however, Dick finds himself the founder-member of The Dandies, a 'pacifist gun club' that meets in a disused mine and engages in target-shooting with weapons they refer to lovingly by name. A quirky set-up, but one that is essentially harmless - until local policeman Krugsby (Pullman) asks Dick to keep an eye on parolee Sebastian (Gordon), who has already proved lethal with a handgun. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg and scripted by Lars Von Trier, Dear Wendy isn't as self-consciously experimental as some of their previous work under the Dogme banner. Indeed, the basic story runs along the lines of the most conventional genre in movie history, the western. In turning the cliches inside out, however, Vinterberg and Von Trier uncover something fresh and intriguing, and they are rewarded by the performances offered by their young cast, particularly Bell as the gang's ring-leader. The story falters going into the final reel - the plot twist that leads to a grand, Peckinpah-esque slo-mo shoot-out is just too implausible, even by the film's narrative-bending standards - but there's plenty here for any film fan to revel in, and the soundtrack, which is dominated by The Zombies, is a real treat.