Up 'n' Under

Based on characters from a play by director John Godber, this patronising feel-good comedy is set in the world of Yorkshire pub seven-a-side rugby. Ex-pro Olsen bets flash git entrepreneur Slattery his house that the Wheatsheaf team of lifelong losers will beat the seemingly invincible Cobblers Arms squad of brick shithouses. Olsen is ordinary and vulnerable enough to be convincing. Samatha Janus, too, as the gym owner who helps whip the team into shape, is sufficiently feisty and natural in the 'strong woman' role to mask the script's contrivance. However, the 'money shot' of her in the nude - 'You've had a look, now piss off!' - is typical of the film's casual sexual-political hypocrisy. Too concerned with courting sympathy, thin on laughs - and the rugby's a joke.