Down Dog

There are moments during this uneven comedy co-written by Simon Nye (TV's Men Behaving Badly) where you genuinely fear for the British film industry. In a bid to shock her ex-husband Frank (Jason Durr) into taking greater responsibility for the parenting of their teenage son, Rachel (Orla O'Rourke) turns to a doctor pal, who cons Frank into thinking that he has only months to live. Predictably, it's a life-changing revelation. As a premise, it's hardly a barrel of laughs, and it sits especially uneasily amid some smutty dialogue, the overacting of support star Nick Moran and the cheap laughs derived from the fact that two of the main characters work in the sex-toy trade. One or two of the more serious father/son scenes pass muster, but emotional truths are few and far between.