The year is 1970, and there's war on the streets of Belfast. But at the height of the euphemistically titled Troubles, the battle uppermost in the minds of young rascals Mickybo and JonJo is fought in a more glamorous location altogether, by their heroes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, on the silver screen.

Having been enthralled by the fim after a trip to the cinema, the unlikely duo (from opposite sides of the sectarian divide) band together to form their own gang, the local bullies who regularly stalk Mickybo and a hostile old man providing convenient enemies. Setting out to re-enact their own Wild West scenario, however, triggers an escalating chain of events even they, with their unreined imaginations, could not have envisaged.

Complications ensue, to put it mildly, as, having broken into his house, they happen to find the old man dead (of natural causes, which in their panic they don't realise) and they get their hands on a real, armed gun. In the time-honoured tradition of their alter egos Butch and Sundance, they make for the border, outlaws pursued by the police, featured on TV and radio news bulletins, Wanted Men.

If Mickybo & Me is a well-made rites of passage tale, it is also an engaging exploration of the power of masculine myth and fantasy. For all the differences in their backgrounds, the boys have one important thing in common, self-indulgent, preoccupied fathers, one a philanderer, the other a gambler. (Where would Irish stories, in books, films and plays, be without the feckless or authoritarian da?) Neither of them have brothers to fill the vacuum of male role model in their lives. No wonder Butch and Sundance have such allure.

First-time feature director Terry Loane fully exploits the comic potential of the plot, based on Owen McCafferty's original stage play, Mojo Mickybo, and draws two charming, convincing performances from the pint-sized tearaways (John Joe McNeill and Niall Wright). Even before they officially go on the run, running is the kids' trademark, up and down steps, squeezing between railings, through the back streets. Full marks to production designer Tom McCullagh for the period detail of the 1970s, the clothes, hairstyles, furniture, stylishly evoked here (if that isn't a contradiction), an attention you might expect given the director's CV as theatre and film set designer, his first calling.

Two quibbles remain. Loane's script does not fully make the transformation from stage to screen in the characterisation of the kids' parents, which feels two-dimensional at times, though played by a strong cast all-round. In the original drama, the (adult) actors who were JonJo and Mickybo also performed every other character. Here, the parents need to stand alone as individuals, and, as written, they were not fleshed out enough. Second, the final reuniting of the runaways with their families, especially their fathers, is over-long, so drawn-out and romanticised that it loses whatever power it should have to move, and robs the ultimate betrayal of JonJo by Mickybo of its punch. Thumbs up for the energy and the comedy, for the boys' central performances, thumbs down for the closing cloying sentimentality.

Paula Shields

Mickybo & Me is released on 25th March 2005.