Directed by Lisa Mulcahy. Starring Diarmuid Noyes, Sam Corry, Shaun Dunne, Mary Murray 15A cert, lim release, 97 min

ANYBODY WHO writes about film in this country will confirm that a frequent readers’ complaint involves overly favourable reviews of Irish films.

Well, you look at something like Situations Vacant– sitting there like a happy little puppy beside the meat cleaver – and you can't help but be merciful. It requires such industry and such determination to get a low-budget film into cinemas that it behoves the critic to tread carefully. There is, however, no way round it. This ramshackle, old-fashioned, tonally uncertain comedy is really not very good.

Like too many Irish films, Situations Vacantfocuses on a bunch of lads and their supposedly amusing adventures at work and play. One chap lives with his mammy and longs for any job that involves the occupation of a desk. Another does a bit of painting and decorating. A third works in a generic office and lives with an anal, emasculating wife.

During the course of the picture, various things happen to various characters in various locations. It’s difficult to be more precise, because the film is constantly picking up plots and genres, fiddling with them for a few moments and then dropping them uninterestedly.

Briefly, it becomes one of those Anistonian comedies in which a man attempts to follow a set of dating rules before realising that romance comes to those who are prepared to be themselves. There’s some sub-Apatow jiggery- pokery in which the painter tries to pick up a colleague. Elsewhere, in a muddled aside, the mammy’s boy makes reference to an annual dinner for his late dad. No plot is fully developed.

The performances are okay. Despite coherent direction by Lisa Mulcahy, the actors are constantly let down by awful jokes. One successful character is called Millen Ayre. Get it? Millen Ayre. It’s that kind of film.