Western review

Directed by Peruvian-born Manuel Poirier, Western is an exceptionally leisurely Gallic road movie (filmed in Cinemascope), which ambles around the Brittany coastline in the idle footsteps of Nino (Bourdo) and Paco (Lopez), two foreigners stranded in western France. The former is a diminutive Russian, who has never had any luck with women, while the latter is a Spanish shoe salesman, and something of a ladies' man. Naturally, this chalk-and-cheese odd couple hook up and head out on the road together.

Sadly, not a lot actually happens on or off said road, and the two-and-a-quarter-hour running time is a trifle self-indulgent. But the protagonists make for engagingly feckless travelling companions, and there are a few amusing encounters en route, not least when wheelchair-bound Baptiste helps them devise an `ideal woman' questionnaire. It's low-key and unhurried, but oddly charming.