LOCK, STOCK AND THREE SMIRKING CULCHIES (PIXIE)

Every country has its stereotypes.

It just really grates when you see them regularly onscreen.

Ireland has had more than its fair share of stereotypes trotted out over the years in sitcoms, plays, movies, cartoons, jokes and songs 

There's the drunken, hedonistic Irish person, the fighting Irishman, the lazy labourer, the Celtic mystic, the village idiot, the religious zealot, the fiery tenpered red haired colleen, the law breaking rogue, the vicious Irish gangster, the silver tongued devil.

Stereotypes always have a kernel of truth, having originated in real life, in fiction or song.

It is just when they are trotted out regularly and used to denigrate a whole nationality that they become clichéd and, yes, toe curlingly racist.

What is particularly galling, however, is when you see people from that country playing up to those stereotypes in fiction or in real life.

That's why the drink fuelled hedonism of some St Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland and around the workd can be so irritating.

Unfortunately, Irish stereotypes remain stubbornly persistent to this day and you need look no further than Barnaby Thompson's cod Irish caper movie 'Pixie' to see them at their worst.

Thompson is a film producer who made his name helping 'Wayne's World,' 'Kevin and Perry Go Large,' 'Spice World: and 'An Ideal Husband' get made and then directed the terrible 'St Trinians' reboot in 2007 and its sequel two years later.

Unfortunately for us, the Londoner has been lured into the director's chair once again by a script from his son Preston.

'Pixie' begins with Rory Fleck Byrne's trigger happy, broken hearted gangster Colm and his sidekick, Fra Fee's Fergus bursting in on a drug deal in a West of Ireland church involving Catholic priests.

Pat Shortt's Father Daly and Frankie McCafferty's Father McGinley are seated with two Afghans wearing clerical garb around a table.

Colm, however, is twitchy and paranoid because he suspects his girl, Olivia Cooke's Pixie Hardy is cheating on him.

And when he doubts Father Daly's claim that the Afghans are priests and tries to make them say the Hail Mary, all hell breaks lose with Fergus and Colm slaughtering the priests and their Afghan guests 

Fathers Daly and McGinley are part of a drug dealing gang of priests and nuns led by Alec Baldwin's Father Hector McGrath who does that thing that only happens in bad movies - appear in an uncovincing TV news report and step towards the camera speaking in menacing tones.

Fergus and Colm have stumbled upon a bag of drugs but within minutes, the former is dead because he has let it slip that he is Pixie's lover.

Gunned down in his car by Colm, his perpetrator sets off on foot clutching the bag full of drugs to angrily remonstrate with her.

Pixie, meanwhile, is in a local bar where she catches the eye of Ben Hardy's silver tongued Frank McCullen and Daryl McCormack's nice guy Harland McKenna while they are buying pills from Chris Walley's Daniel.

Realising both fancy Pixie, Daniel briefs them on the local gossip that she is an aspiring photographer who likes to take photos of her conquests while in flagrante.

And so the witless, horny duo turn up at her cottage, with Frank plucking up the courage to knock on Pixie's door while Harland watches from his car, hoping he fails.

Always 12 steps ahead of everyone, Pixie mocks Frank's naivete but allows him inside, taking him to a bedroom and applying makeup to him and taking embarrassing photos.

Colm, however, shows up for an angry confrontation with his girlfriend and ends up getting run over by a panicky Harland.

And so Pixie, Harland and Frank abscond with Colm's body in the trunk of the car and his bag of drugs, hoping to make a quick buck by selling them on to Daniel's drug dealing uncle, Dylan Moran's Raymond Donnelly.

But with Father Hector on the loose, screaming vengeance against Pixie's dear old, gangster stepdad, Colm Meaney's Dermot O'Brien, the threesome are living by their wits.

You can easily imagine that the Thompsons pitched 'Pixie' as 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' meets 'Fr Ted' and 'Pulp Fiction'.

And you have to hand it to them that they somehow managed to persuade financial backers to bankroll this guff.

What you end up with, however, is a film full of tired old Tarantinoesque cinematic clichés that had passed their use by date in the early 2000s.

Fuse that with bad writing riffing on Irish stereotypes and you've got 'Pixie' - a film which seems to be aimed at fleecing international audiences, believing they will be easily fooled into buying it as delightful Celtic mayhem.

That instinct may be sound 

Some critics in the UK and Australia have bought into the nonsense, praing it as a delightfully irreverent Irish tale.

However it is about as authentically Irish as Kellogg's Lucky Charms.

Filmed mostly in Northern Ireland, the Thompsons clearly believe they have delivered a film that has all the swagger of a Guy Ritchie and the wit of the films of Conor McPherson, Martin McDonagh and his brother John Michael McDonagh.

On that score, we will give them one out of two but that is hardly a recommendation when all you've got is the swagger of Guy Ritchie's work.

Preston Thompson's script never delights because it has little feel for the Irish sense of humour or the west of Ireland vernacular.

It is a faux Irish comedy.

And while John De Norman's cinematography undoubtedly gets the most out of the lush landscapes, Barnaby Thompson's direction seems derivative and condescending.

'Pixie' tries to feed off the energy of its three young leads and while they show a lot of commitment in their roles, their efforts are misguided.

Cooke, who audiences may remember from Steven Spielberg's 'Ready Player One' and Hardy, who was Queen's drummer Roger Taylor in 'Bohemian Rhapsody', concentrate so hard on getting their Irish accents right that their characters quickly lose their twinkly charm.

Some of the Northern Irish cast's accents are no better, with Turlough Convery and Packie Lee overpronouncing and desperately overacting as Pixie's duplicitous half-brother Mickey O'Brien and his fellow gang member Tommy.

McCormack tries and fails to make any real impression as Harland, while Baldwin trots out the corrupt, arrogant, authoritarian Irish Catholic priest cliché - albeit with a gun toting twist.

What's most dispiriting is watching seasoned Irish actors indulging this nonsense.

Colm Meaney dusts down the charming gang boss routine he often does when he isn't playing pompous Gardai.

Ned Dennehy, who was so sinister lastcyear in Nick Rowland's excellent west of Ireland crime drama 'Calm with Horses,' slums it with a lazy gangland enforcer role.

Chris Walley, who has proven his flair for physical comedy as Jock in BBC3's Cork sitcom 'The Young Offenders,' is depressingly trite.

David Rawle, who some audiences may recognise as Martin Moone from Chris O'Dowd's rural Irish Sky 1 sitcom 'Moone Boy,' pops up as a teenage Altar Boy and is subjected to some uncomfortable banter from Frank.

Dylan Moran is... well, Dylan Moran pretending to be a drug dealer in a fish factory but not even that can save it.

Nor can Pat Shortt's shouty cameo at the start of the film.

In the end, though, 'Pixie' is not just an unconvincing, clichéd, inauthentic and exploitative movie.

If you want authentically Irish crime comedy, don't waste your time on this drivel.

Check out instead Conor McPherson's 'I Went Down,' Martin McDonagh's 'In Bruges' or John Michael McDonagh's 'The Guard.'

'Pixie' is an extremely pale imitation.

Devoid of genuine thrills, it isn't as clever as it thinks it is and just isn't funny.

And if you can't deliver laughs in a gangland caper comedy, well... that's just criminal.

('Pixie' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on October 23, 2020 and on digital streaming and DVD on March 1, 2021)