The growing trend of stuffing large casts into films with twisty-turny, overlapping stories continues with interMission, the debut film from stage director John Crowley and playwright Mark O'Rowe.  I usually see a handful of pictures like this at every festival I attend – some are memorable because they possess a real knack for storytelling, and others entertain merely by offering a lot of attractive people to stare at for two hours. interMission does both relatively well, and it's a lot of fun to watch.  But not all filmmakers can be Paul Thomas Anderson and/or Quentin Tarantino. Hell, even Robert Altman isn't Robert Altman anymore (we'll refrain from tossing Guy Ritchie into that soup until his next picture is released).

interMission's title comes from the state of the romantic relationship between John (Cillian Murphy, Girl with a Pearl Earring) and Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald, Gosford Park) when the former, a low-level employee at a Dublin mega-mart, suggests to the latter that a temporary breakup might strengthen their relationship.  John does this as a test of Deirdre's devotion, but the plan backfires when the pretty bank teller decides to have a fling with her manager.

This all happens before interMission's curtain rises, but the near-cataclysmic chain of events the "temporary" breakup sets off is more than enough to consume a 102-minute running time.  Now hold onto your hats for the cheesy film critic crutch known as A Brief Look at the Characters and How They're All Related (Preferably Told in Run-On Sentences).

Deirdre's new lover, bank manager-in-a-midlife-crisis Sam (Michael McElhatton, Blow Dry) dumps his wife Noleen (Deirdre O'Kane), who hits the dating scene only to wind up in the arms of John's mega-mart buddy Oscar (David Wilmot).  Meanwhile, John's fury toward the Deirdre-Sam debacle has attracted the attention of professional criminal Lehiff (Colin Farrell, SWAT), who wants to rob their bank as the tired "one last job before I call it quits" cliché.  Lehiff figures John would have no qualms stealing from the guy who took his girl, and he additionally enlists the aid of Mick (Brian F. O'Byrne), a bus driver who was recently fired after his involvement in an accident which took place immediately after dropping off Deirdre's mum (Ger Ryan, Queer as Folk) and sister (Shirley Henderson, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself).  Lehiff is constantly being pursued by Detective Jerry Lynch (Colm Meaney, How Harry Became a Tree), a bumbling, publicity hound cop who, in turn, is being pursued by a television producer that thinks Lynch would make a fine subject for a new reality television show.

And that doesn't even include the mega-mart's brutal but best unintentionally hysterical boss this side of David Brent (Owen Roe, who was Farrell's Ballykissangel co-star).  It's all enough to make interMission like the hipper, younger brother of the similarly chronological Love Actually. The only thing edgy about Actually was the language and the nudity. interMission, on the other hand, does feature a big Hollywood star punching an innocent girl square in the face before your eyes have even adjusted to the darkness of the theatre.  There's a lot of fairly mean-spirited stuff included here, including Henderson's poor character, who has more hair on her upper lip than Jimmy Fallon and gives the term "getting dumped" a whole new definition.  Then again, both Actually and interMission feature big stars performing musical numbers you'd sooner forget (Colin Farrell one-ups Hugh Grant by crooning a better song in "I Fought the Law").

The acting in interMission is decent, which is really all it needs to be with a cast this cool.  The story is certainly entertaining enough to keep viewers interested, but it breaks no new ground in terms of being a Violent Urban Ensemble.  If anything, interMission's best scenes will remind you of better efforts, like Farrell's opening punch which follows the same robber-flirting-with-victim patter as Out of Sight, or the subsequent chase through crowded streets a la Trainspotting.  Still, it's an awfully impressive first-time effort, aided by Polish lenser Ryszard Lenczewski's (Last Resort) dazzling handheld camerawork.  And you have to hand it to a film with a running gag revolving around two single guys trying to consume an entire case of stolen chef's sauce.

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for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence