Captain Jack

This cosily populist, sentimental comedy of everyday heroism makes those old Ealing fables look comparatively tough, relevant and even contemporary. Hoskins is the ornery, eccentric boat owner who gives up his less than lucrative tourist trips of Whitby harbour to make an epic journey to an uninhabited Arctic island to commemorate his hero, the long dead and neglected Capt Scoresby; his crew, naturally, is a motley selection of misfits and no-hopers who end up - surprise! - redeemed and reconciled by his mad anti-bureaucratic venture. A couple (literally) of funny lines apart, this is tired, tepid and, given the land- and seascape, woefully televisual.