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Here's a curiosity: an intelligent, well-written film which displays some top-notch direction and good performances by a selection of charismatic performers. And how did it fare? Well, it lay on the shelf for three years before finally experiencing a sporadic release (if you were able to track one the few cinemas to show it, you're a better man than I). Critics generally dismissed it with the couple of lines they were willing to spend not discussing the merits of the latest family-friendly - but oh so witty - animation or social realist drama. All of the time whilst belittling the tender merits of the British Film Industry, which leads me to believe that someone, somewhere, needs to set up some kind of organisation that adequately promotes home-grown films to the British Press. These are the guys with the power, and they certainly seem unwilling to lavish any attention on native product otherwise (with the exception of work by one or two established filmmakers, that is).

Set in the fourteenth century, Paul Bettany - who's since gone on to bigger things - stars as Nicholas, an educated priest on the run after conducting an affair with one of his parishioners (and an intimation of even darker things). He takes refuge with a group of travelling players, who are making their way to Durham in order to perform for the local bigwig. On the waythey are sidetracked in a small town under the governorship of Lord De Guise (Vincent Cassel), where they put on their rather ropey show in order to raise a bit of money. Seeing the underwhelming response of the audience they hit upon a novel way of attracting a crowd: adapting local events into a play format.

And the event that everybody is talking about is the conviction of a death-and-dumb woman for the murder of a child. The players duly work the crime into a morality play, but although their new work attracts the crowds it also almost starts a riot: people believe that there's more to the matter than the authorities are willing to let on. As a means of finding some degree of atonement, Nicholas determines to uncover the true story.

Based on the novel Morality Play by Barry Unsworth, this middle-ages murder mystery has an obvious progenitor in The Name of the Rose, although it's far less complex than that film and lacks some of its searing intellect. It has some similarities with Ian Pears' excellent An Instance of the Fingerpost, which also centres around an innocent girl - and faith healer - accused of murder for a mixture of political and malicious reasons. In truth, the identity of the killer - and the truth behind the miserable business - is pretty obvious from the start, but the story is more concerned with Nicholas's relationship with the acting troupe and his quest for redemption. There's also plenty of self-reflection on the act of reinterpreting 'true' events as entertainment, as well as a preoccupation with examining the capacity for violence that lies just beneath the surface of the human skin.

The narrative progresses with a certain sense of inevitability towards its slightly confusing, almost bathetic climax. But a disappointing ending seems to be de riguer for films nowadays, and - as well as being tightly paced and atmospheric - there's considerable enjoyment to be derived from the incidentals. The sets look like they belong to a much more expensive film, the photography is memorable and the scenes of the players rehearsing and exercising are strangely compulsive. Paul McGuigan, who previously made the excellent crime film Gangster Number 1 (2000), directs with some aplomb, and in any other country would have been allotted some respect as a promising filmmaker and given a decent budget to work with. As it is, he's now decamped to the US , where he's made a couple of well-received Josh Hartnett flicks: Wicker Park (2004) and Luck Number Slevin (2005). But hey, we've still got Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, so all's tip-top and hunky-dory.

Bettany - who also starred in Gangster Number 1 - gives an extremely powerful performance; there's something of the Christopher Ecclestone about him, an intensity that hints at certain undercurrents within. Willem Dafoe is surprisingly understated as the leader of the players, but some of the physical exercises he carries out are simply astonishing. Further down the cast list there are entertaining cameos from the likes of Mark Benton (who's been omnipresent on UK television recently), Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting) and Simon (Shaun of the Dead) Pegg. Interestingly, this was a UK / Spanish co-production, giving further credence to the argument that the Hispanic film industry is the most consistently interesting in the world at present, and some of the impressive location work was shot in Almeria , home of the Spaghetti Western.

Matt B