IT'S A NICE, VIOLENT ENSEMBLE COMEDY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

WORKING-CLASS whimsicality has afflicted British filmmaking for many years now. And like many of that island's bad ideas, it's now been dumped on neighboring Ireland.

The Dublin-set ``Intermission'' is grittier than your average multicharacter comedy about quirky common folk in naughty situations. There's violent crime here, as well as truly nasty, obsessive behavior. Then again, it's still a round robin of lovelorn, beaten-down folk looking for self-esteem in all the wrong people until, mostly, they find it in the right one. At least in ``Intermission,'' some of them get killed before they have a happy ending. This gives those of us who've had it up to here with these twee exports a certain vicarious satisfaction.

Made by stage veterans, director John Crowley and playwright Mark O'Rowe, the movie is blessed by excellent performances from a cool, eclectic ensemble. It looks pretty realistic, too, neither too grungy nor touristy quaint, just kind of where-the-suburbs-meet-the-slums natural.

All that checked and balanced, it's still too cute for its own good.

Ideally cast as a sociopathic petty thief, Colin Farrell plays Lehiff, whose MO is to sweet-talk cashiers before smacking them up and grabbing their cash. He's being chased, vigorously but ineptly, by an equally psychotic cop, Jerry (``Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's'' Colm Meaney), who is shadowed himself by a driven reality-TV reporter, Tom O'Sullivan's Ben.

Meanwhile, at an inhuman big-box store, slacker shelf-stockers John (``28 Days Later's'' Cillian Murphy) and Oscar (David Wilmot) complain about their love lives all day. John tested his girlfriend's devotion and lost. Oscar can't even get aroused by porn anymore. Oh, and their boss is a jerk.

John's ex, Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald from ``Trainspotting''), instantly took up with an older, married man, Michael McElhatton's Sam, whom she's already bored with. Sam's wife, Noellen (Deirdre O'Kane), reacted by seeking younger men to have very angry sex with. But at least she's getting out. Deirdre's sister Sally (Shirley Henderson, an increasingly indispensable source of coy wit in these kinds of films), retreated to her mum's flat and took up growing a mustache following a particularly appalling romantic betrayal.

These disparate lives and others intersect due to various ill-advised plots. And plot points; the comedy of coincidence is overworked here to an exhausting extent. Some nice pokes are taken at Irish conventions; it will be hard, after ``Intermission,'' to ever take Celtic mysticism and flavored teas seriously again. But the movie's machinations wear you out more than its jokes tickle your fancy.

Can't we have a break from this kind of stuff?

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

INTERMISSION - Two and one half stars

(R: violence, language, sex, nudity, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald, Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney, David Wilmot, Shirley Henderson, Michael McElhatton, Deirdre O'Kane, Ger Ryan, Tom O'Sullivan.

Director: John Crowley.

Running time: 1 hr. 46 min.

Playing: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Landmark NuWilshire, Santa Monica; Edwards South Coast Village 3, Costa Mesa.

In a nutshell: A nice dash of Irish roughhouse isn't enough to make this multicharacter romantic crime comedy stand out from similar sludge that's been floating off of the British Isles.

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Colm Meaney is a troubled cop chasing a petty thief through Dublin in the gritty but too cute ``Intermission.''