Fine. James reckons I’ve been a little harsh on Happy, Texas. OK, fair comment. I admit that I didn’t expand on my criticism, and that may have left some readers in confusion about why I felt it was so bad, especially given the potential strength of the ensemble cast.

Well, for the record, the main thing I found objectionable about it was that all the main players seemed, frankly, bored about being there. Steve Zahn was unintelligible. Jeremy Northam was accent-slippingly passionless. William H Macy was stock William H Macy, except this time without added spark. Ileanna Douglas looked like she’d rather be doing something (anything) else. And Ally Walker was less vacant and more convincing when she played the eternally sugar-crashing Pam (ela. Pamela. Pammy. Making popcorn with Pammy.) in Singles and Ashley Bartlett Bacon (”I object to this wedding!” Priest: “Get in line”) in While You Were Sleeping. There was nothing believable about her character - in fact, there was nothing believable about any of them. They all seemed uncomfortable in their costumes, itchy in their accents. The whole thing seemed limp and formulaic. The cast did well given the poor script, but even they couldn’t make a good job of the crap material - a script which wavered from comedy to romance to thriller to social comedy (think To Wong Foo… meets The Fugitive meets Drop Dead Gorgeous meets Nuns on the Run), and which staggered from tired cliche to embarrassing gay joke.

I’m sorry, I tried to like it, but I just didn’t.

I haven’t seen Little Nicky, Battlefield Earth and Vertical Limit, so I don’t feel qualified to comment on them specifically. I have, however, seen Jade, which is categorically the worst movie of all time. Compared to that, Happy, Texas was a delight. It is by no means the worst film I’ve ever seen. But it wasn’t good.