After Big Nothing – in fact, possibly before that (my initial anticipation for Hot Fuzz wasn’t that huge) – even Simon Pegg couldn’t help this one from looking like yet another of those rushed British comedies I really thought we’d seen the back of years ago. It’s essentially The Full Monty with running and a dash of Rocky; it’s severely overloaded with Britcom stars (the David Walliams “Mr. Man” from Little Britain in Thandie Newton’s bakery is about the most cringeworthy … plenty others come close though), it’s shot in 2.35:1 ratio for no good reason (one of my biggest movie hangups), and the prospective stepfather plot with Hank Azaria is about as thoughtless as that in All I Want for Christmas, right down to the final, “Hang on, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet, besides being willing to step in for a single mother, has he? Let’s make him swear at the kid!” moment.

But what can I say, none of these things really detract from the general sense of fun throughout – Dylan Moran being one of the Britcom peeps who never annoys (“Come on up!” LOL might be my favourite final shot of the past year; it’s certainly the funniest) and the final marathon sequence, built around a beautiful image of Pegg “hitting the wall” ... my heart just went with it entirely and there were more than a couple of tears in my eyes for him. I just realised looking at the IMDb that David Schwimmer directed it – I’m sure I knew this already but it’d slipped my mind. See, this is what I meant on Gone Baby Gone about a movie exceeding the director’s name. I’d be interested in seeing more from him.