Gay escort Carter Page III (Harrelson), who caters to Washington DC's society ladies, becomes embroiled in a murder case. Both the film and the script are by Paul 'Taxi Driver' Schrader, and the cast boasts some veteran names. Sounds promising, doesn't it?

Sadly, the movie is less exciting than the premise. This is a mannered, rather pedestrian drama about a gossipy set of characters who inhabit a superficially genteel world of canasta games in candlelit drawing rooms (the filming took place in Washington DC's snooty Sulgrave Club), banquets and concerts.

Carter, a Virginian who lives in the shadow of his dead father, is a moustachioed dandy with a southern twang so sharp you could have someone's eye out with it. The darker, menacing elements to the story crop up due to his associations with a politician's philandering wife Lynn Lockner (Scott Thomas) and a photographer Emek (Moritz Bleibtreu).

Lynn Lockner's lover, Robbie Kononsberg (Steven Hartley) is murdered and snapper Emek is determined to dig out clues as to the motive. Soon he and Carter are being pursued by a mysterious thug, with fatal results.

It's difficult to feel particularly sympathetic towards a group of characters who are by turns effete, snobbish and self-regarding. Carter remains an aloof figure throughout, whose life appears rather asexual for someone so camp. Attempts to inject contemporary references - Emek is frequently seen working on montages featuring tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, for example - seem difficult to reconcile with Carter's world of finely tailored suits (he is in a different outfit in nearly every scene) and the Chinese decor of both the card playing room and Carter's home.

Moreover, there is a bittiness to this film that faintly reminded me of another project that sounded tantalising on paper, but which proved haphazard on screen, Syriana, by writer-director Stephen Gaghan.

There is more coherence here than in Syriana, thanks to Schrader's pedigree as a writer. By his own admission, however the direction is low-key and old-fashioned, in keeping with the stately pace of the protagonists' lives. This gives it the feel of TV movie rather than a cinematic spectacle.

OUR RATING: Two and a half stars out of five.

Thriller/psychological drama. Stars: Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Moritz Bleibtreu, Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty, Willem Dafoe, William Hope, Mary Beth Hurt