Electric Man

Electric Man is a micro-budget feature shot in Edinburgh which follows Jason and Wolf, two hapless comic shop owners, on the trail of a rare and valuable comic which they hope will solve their financial problems. To this end, they must outwit the bad guys - an obsessive American collector and a Glasgow hard man (Derek Dick, aka Fish from Marillion) - and figure out the motives of a mysterious American femme fatale who favours the sort of long, black hooded cape last seen in the Scottish Widows adverts.

Combining elements of caper movie, romcom and film noir pastiche, Electric Man aims its sights at a wider audience than simply comic fanboys. It manages to put its tiny, £55,000 budget to good use with a handsome credit sequence, a reasonable bicycle-and-car chase, and some nice cinematography which wisely uses the Edinburgh backdrop to give the film's production values a much needed boost.

However, these resources would have been better used tightening up the script which trips over its own convolutions and quickly dissipates any tension, while the comic elements often feel laboured, leaving the viewer feeling underwhelmed.