FRITZ Brown is your archetypal down-at-heel PI. A gravelly voiced, recovering alcoholic, he was unceremoniously booted out of the LAPD, and now earns his money largely by repossessing cars. He doesn't get a great deal of investigative work. Then an obese golf caddie called Fat Dog pays him a call. Fat Dog is worried about his 17-year old sister's involvement with a local bad guy. He wants Brown to make sure that no harm comes to the girl. Brown knows that it "smells bad", but when he sees the colour of Fat Dog's money ("the one thing that you can trust") he's there.

Brown's Requiem is your archetypal film noir set, slightly bizarrely, against a back-drop of L.A.'s golf courses and underworld. James Elroy wrote the book while he was getting over his own alcoholism and working as a caddie. It was his first book. Likewise the film version is Jason Freeland's directorial debut.

This might explain why the film, save for a few touches here and there, is so safe and down-the-line noirish. There are no great surprises. Most of the genre's distinguishing features are here. The plot is thick, involving a a dodgy job, pretty girl, hoodlums who pop up out of nowhere, shady dealings, hidden money and a PI with personal problems. Naturally, voice-over narrative is used extensively and strewn with cliches. Michael Rooker ("Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer", "JFK") puts in a sound performance, as does William Sasso as the wobbly, king cabbie, Fat Dog. Aficionados of film noir may find it diverting, although besides another famous adaptation of an Elroy thriller, "L.A. Confidential", it is decidedly low octane.