I was in the cinema a couple of years back when I overheard the following from a group of 14/15 year old girls sitting behind me. They were chatting away merrily, blissfully ignoring the noisy trailer for Bad Boys II until the fading title: 'Bad Boys II – Coming Soon!' There was a short silence, then a small voice piped up, a little uncertain: 'Does that mean there was a Bad Boys One?'

I laughed at the time, until the realisation dawned that the only humorous thing about this was that I was, to quote the immortal words of Danny Glover, 'getting too old for this shit'. Why would these girls remember some mediocre action film that came out when they had just learned to walk? Exactly what would they remember?

This train of thought led me to imagine what sort of films 'da kids' are watching these days. When I was a fifteen year old boy, I didn't like the movies aimed at 15 year old boys. No-one did. Like all self-respecting 15 year old boys, I wanted to watch films aimed at 19 year old boys, preferably something liberally sprinkled with sex, drugs and violence.

Which, in roundabout fashion, brings us to Shimmy Marcus' Headrush, whose briskly-paced 85 minute running time sees a good-looking cast experiment with sex, drugs and violence, woven together in a not-entirely coherent plot about drug smuggling. 'A-ha!' you cry, 'Isn't saying a film is perfect for 15 year olds smacking of faint praise? Like saying Revenge Of The Sith is the best of the Star Wars prequels or House of Wax is worth a watch because Paris Hilton gets horribly killed in it?' Probably.

While the eleven year gestation period (Marcus began the first draft back in Christmas 1994) may have left the main characters (amiable stoners) their dilemmas (women, money, gangsters) and their environment (the cubs of the Celtic Tiger are still purring contentedly) unchanged, a lot of crime-capered water has passed under the bridge in the last decade and one has to do a lot of hard work to stand out in the crowd. It's difficult not to flinch when you hear phrases like 'comic coincidences', 'madcap adventures' and hilarious consequences'.

Light-hearted and light-headed, Headrush is impressively lit on sparkling HD Video by cinematographer Owen McPolin (also behind the lens of last month's Trouble With Sex) and bolstered by a reasonably eclectic soundtrack (BP Fallon, who cameos as free-loving drug dealer Blowback, is also credited as Music Vibe Consultant). The story centres around the hash-fuelled friendship of Charlie and T-Bag (Wuzza Conlon and Gavin Kelty, both playing admirably against type) who get involved in a convoluted drug-running scam for a psychotic Scottish gangster (Steven Berkoff, chewing through scenery like Tic-Tacs) after Charlie is cut off from the dole and dumped by his level-headed girlfriend (Laura Pyper).

If this doesn't sound very original, the chances are, you're probably not a fifteen year old boy. And fifteen year old boys are undoubtedly Headrush's target audience, a fact enhanced by the curiously lenient 16 Cert awarded to it by IFCO. Older viewers (particularly Cheech & Chong fans) will chuckle politely, though that may depend on how fondly they'd take to a feature-length version of The Fast Show's 'Heroin Galore!' sketch.

One depressing thought to take away with you: most fifteen year olds won't even remember The Fast Show. Scary, isn't it?

Jamie Hannigan

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
Headrush is released on 24th June 2005.
Headrush – Official website