Grin and bear it

"You look like shit!" says poor, distraught Nick Leeson to his reflection in the bonnet of someone's Merc, having just thrown up agonisingly into the flowerbeds. That will serve as unimprovable criticism for the rest of Rogue Trader, the story of the untragic and uninteresting downfall of Barings Bank. This truly awful film - rushed out because Leeson is to due to be released from prison - was exec-produced by Sir David Frost, who got the idea after interviewing the luckless arbitrageur in the clink.

All the leaden chat show/press-cutting cliches that the film uncritically recycles about the Victim/Hero Leeson - barrow boy made good, snooty toffs in charge - read like the researchers' notes Sir David would have flicked through before the interview kicked off.

In fact, Leeson himself seems to have believed his own publicity, since this film is studded with tin-eared dialogue and voice-overs, evidently derived from Leeson's autobiography: "Thanks to Maggie Thatcher opening up the City of London..."; "Indonesia was one of the so-called 'tiger' economies..."; "Not bad for a chancer from Watford".

The problem is that Nick isn't all that interesting: there are no sexual shenanigans, as Nick is sweetly devoted to his lady wife, Lisa, and no real money excitement, as Nick is making nothing for himself. Despite this film's earnest and baffled attempts to turn him into Charlie Sheen, the awful truth is that he was a plump, bespectacled nerd from a dull and comfy Hertfordshire town.

Rogue Trader is a terrible waste of the talents of Ewan McGregor, and poor Anna Friel as Lisa squawks uncomprehendingly as her useless chump of a husband lands them both in the brown stuff: "Oh Nick." Oh dear.