PRAISED as one of the most important films in movie history Irreversible has received widespread critical acclaim for its innovative writing and direction.

The story of Marcus (played by La Haine star Vincent Cassell), his girlfriend Alex and Alex's ex-boyfriend Pierre and their shocking plunge into a world of violence and brutality is told 'backwards', in a similar style to Christopher Nolan's Memento.

It is, though, bleak, horrific and unnecessarily graphic in its depiction of extreme violence and rape and is nowhere near as good as the American film.

The start of the movie shows the characters already in the depraved underbelly of Paris society but we don't see them in their natural habitat first.

As a result the viewer has no sympathy with the characters, as we haven't seen them go through all the previous events that lead them to this horrible world.

The two men start the film as monsters and end it as average middle class people.

I watched the film hoping for a redeeming plot twist or some sort of deep message - I was disappointed.

It is shocking for the sake of being shocking and if you were to play the film forwards chronologically you would find a very simple, seemingly homophobic, gratuitously violent and distinctly average movie.

Steven Hallmark