Peter Cattaneo, director of the hugely pleasing The Full Monty, comes back with yet another cheeky blast centered on a lovable lout. The only problem is that the lout is none too lovable and the chuckles are fleeting and far too few. Jimmy (James Nesbitt), a bungling small-time crook, botches the big bank caper and winds up in a rinky-dink slammer somewhere off in the British countryside. There he antagonizes authorities with his defiant charm, falls for the sassy guidance counselor (Olivia Williams), and hatches a jailbreak scheme by staging a musical, of all things.

Nesbitt broods on cue and lickers with romantic hopefulness when around Williams, but he can’t overcome the banality of the script and the lack of comic punch. Savvy Christopher Plummer is an uproarious garnish as the South Pacific–loving warden, and Full Monty vet Timothy Spall adds a touch of humanity and self-depreciating humor as Jimmy’s melancholy cellmate.