THE CLOSER YOU GET

Directed by Aileen Ritchie. Starring Niamh Cusack, Ian Hart, Ruth McCabe, Pat Shortt

Begorrah and begob, sure 'tis only de greatest day for de Irish since dat Waking Ned. An unrelenting bombardment of crass Paddywhackery of the kind 19th-century Punch magazine would have deemed too condescending to contemplate, The Closer You Get elevates the 'look at these hilarious, filthy, shit-thick Paddies' routine to previously unscaled peaks, and winds up as a strong contender for the vilest Irish film of all time.

Lacking even a smidgen of Waking Ned's (very limited) comic value, and more patronising than a thousand Daily Telegraph editorials, the film is so stunningly shit it deserves a kind of immortality - yet to the native viewer, it becomes perversely compelling once the initial shock has receded. As pure entertainment, the film stinks beyond description - but as a sociological study of perceptions of post-colonial Ireland, it's almost compulsory viewing.

Set among a horde of adult bachelors in a positively gothic Donegal village, the film's plot essentially concerns an outbreak of virginity-psychosis among a motley troupe of cute, backward Rent-a-Paddy comic retards, the like of which you've never seen in your life. They all get along fine, engaging one another in nightly bachelor-bonding and rapacious alcohol consumption - but they're collectively all-too-well-aware that something is missing from their lives, so in a fit of sexual repression, the lads decide to advertise in the Miami Herald for 'Yank women', in belated recognition of the local womenfolk's complete unwillingness to trade fluids with any of them.

What unfolds is enough to make the mind split into pieces: there are actual exchanges of dialogue between thirtysomething males, enquiring (on the loss of one of the gang's virginity) whether the female involved was of the four-legged or two-legged variety. Meanwhile, the village's female population are almost as chilling to behold: they are prone to conducting all manner of mail-fraud in order to ascertain the entire contents of the local menfolk's communications, which generally involve deliveries of depraved porno-mags.

The most stunning sight of all, though, is Ian Hart's career suicide in what might be called the lead role: Hart was once, circa Land & Freedom, an actor of marked promise. He's since been reduced to a sad succession of clown-curiosity cameos and flaming maladjusted Celts (Nothing Personal, Gold In The Streets, and now this) and plumbs uncharted depths in The Closer You Get as the local butcher, pisshead and town braggart.

That said, Hart is by no means alone on the roll of dishonour. Pat Shortt, Ruth McCabe, Sean McGinley and virtually everyone on view is guilty of debasing their nationality in the cause of comic ineptitude - and although some of the alleged comic sequences might conceivably appeal to those under the age of six, the rest of us will be left open-mouthed and, with all the best will in the world, downright racially offended.

Without doubt, the most penetrating and accurate insight into the Irish psyche since Darby O'Gill And The Little People. Or maybe not.