(15, 125mins) Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Bruce Dern, Rory Culkin, John Diehl. Directed by David Jacobsen

Who says the Western movie is dead?

It's been a while since there's been a good "shoot 'em up, ride a horse, eat beans out of a tin" cowboy adventure on the big screen, but the genre's definitely not deceased.

Rather, it's had a facelift, giving it that fresh, young and sexy look that'll hopefully attract a new generation of cinemagoers.

We meet modern day cowboy Harlan Carruthers (Norton) working at a gas station in LA's San Fernando Valley, even though he hates cars and doesn't own one.

That's where disconnected teenager Tobe (Wood) picks him up one day on her way to the beach with her friends. They think Harlan's a joke, with his cowboy hat and strange way of talking, but she's drawn to him, and by the end of the day she's seduced him.

It's not giving much away to reveal that this relationship is clearly very bad news almost from the first moment they meet.

Harlan's got just one cowboy-booted foot in the real world, and he's definitely not the kind of man Tobe's dad wants his daughter dating. But, as tends to be the way with teenagers, dad's opposition just makes Tobe want Harlan even more, and that rebelliousness is to have tragic consequences for the whole of her dysfunctional family.

Harlan's the latest in a long line of movie protagonists that stretches back to Shane, Badlands, and Taxi Driver - solitary heroes who reject the values of mainstream society in favour of frontier life in a mythic Wild West.

It's an interesting spin on an old theme, but unfortunately Edward Norton the film's producer gives Edward Norton the film's star too much indulgence and the final third of the story drags badly.

There are some excellent performances, but the film could have been so much more.