The Freezepop T-Shirt in the back of my wardrobe is proof that we’ve all done stupid things to impress girls, but Nick Twisp takes it a bit further than most in Dimension Film’s new adap of C.D.Payne’s enormous teen saga, and just about gets away with it too.

Living in a trailer with Zakk Galifianakis isn’t my idea of fun either, so when Michael Cera’s secretly-cool dorky Twisp bumps into Sheeni Saunders, he seizes on her Francophilia with a vengeance, creating an entirely new hipster persona – the preposterously monikered Francois Dillinger – and sets about an escalating campaign of crime –all in the name of love naturally.

Payne’s original book is absurdist in the extreme, but transfers well to the screen thanks to it’s penchant for blackly-humorous, if ridiculous, skits that nailed their colours to that staple of teen drama: Girls love a bad boy.

Cera himself is a great piece of casting. Over the past year his career went into mini-freefall with the likes of Year One blotting his otherwise impeccable CV, but it helped foster a nice guy loser persona that he delights in ripping to shreds here, his performance subtle and tinged with spite. He excels in scenes where his two personalities play off against each other, Francois pencil-tache lips sneering with just the right amount of Gallic stereotype, while the surrealist touches that director Arteta excels at make it impossible not to laugh, even when watching the ravings of a split-personality nutjob. You’ll find yourself drawn to Dillinger, his Tyler Durden-lite blackmail and arson curiously loveable and compelling as he fights his very odd fight to get the girl.

Overall the movie relies a little too heavily on set-pieces, coming off as a surrealist sketch show at times, but with able performances from the leads and strong support from the likes of Steve Buscemi (as Cera’s teen-chasing dad) it ends up being a comic teen Fight Club that hopefully marks an end to Cera’s downward slump.

Every once in a while it happens. While picking up fuses and oversized packets of damaged biscuits in Poundland, you find yourself in the aisle with the DVDs and VHS tapes. ‘Go on’ says the stupidest part of your brain. ‘Buy one. Its only a quid.’

Almost every time, it’s a pile of shit.

But sometimes, once in a blue moon, you get a surprise. An actually watchable movie.

Run Ronnie Run is one such movie.

Based on a character from Mr. Show – an American comedy series that sadly never got an airing on this side of the pond, it’s the story of Ronnie Dobbs (played by David Cross from Arrested Development), a stupid, redneck trailer park dude, with a habit of getting arrested on camera. His criminal misadventures gain the attention of a failed inventor, a terrible infomercial presenter and the owner of the most awful English accent ever, Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk) who sucessfully pitches ‘Ronnie Dobbs Gets Arrested’ – a show where Ronnie gets arrested in various cities – at some idiotic network execs. The show becomes a sensation, making Ronnie ridiculously wealthy, and changing his life…

The plot, to be honest, it a bit stupid, disjointed and secondary to the idiotic humor on display. Having never seen Mr. Show, I have never experienced Odenkirk & Cross’s comedy styings. Imagine Arrested Development with all the subtlety removed and replaced with jokes about dogs eating their own vomit.

Strangely – it’s very, very funny.

Most of the laughs come from Ronnie’s innate redneck-isms, disregard for law and general not-giving-a-shit attitude. You couple that with a supporting cast made of of one dimensional idiots who serve only to be his comic foil, or the butt of his tasteless, borderline offense jokes and you get a movie best enjoyed with the brain turned off, and the beer (or tipple of choice) in full flow. – Watch it with some hopefully like minded friends and you’ll be quoting it constantly to each other, snickering and annoying all around you, the 99.999% of the populous who didn’t rescue this from bargain bin obscurity.

It’s their loss.