Kids find stolen loot, but the plot is lost by Danny Boyle's fussy direction, writes Donald ClarkeFULL CINEMA LISTINGS PAGE 13-16

One of the many pleasures of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later - particularly for those of us who never understood the furore surrounding Trainspotting and Shallow Grave - came from observing how the director had finally embraced mess. All Boyle's previous pictures were filmed in coldly lit sets that looked as if they had been put up yesterday. His actors appeared in artfully distressed clothes that had, you would guess, never previously been worn. That famous loo in Trainspotting didn't really look like the worst toilet in the world; it looked like an installation modelled on the worst toilet in the world.

Sad to relate, Millions, a film aimed at the family market featuring bits of Great Expectations and, accidentally, the Northern Ireland bank raid, returns to Boyle's earlier bold, distancing style. Showing little faith in the power of screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce's engaging fable, Boyle never allows his camera to track when it can fly, and punctuates every revelation with some jarring cinematic exclamation point. I suspect children like this sort of distracting razzmatazz rather less than trendy film directors think they do.

The oddly pious Damian (Alex Etel, impressive) and his more materially minded brother Anthony (Lewis McGibbon) have just moved into a Manchester housing estate following the death of their mother. One day a huge bag of money - from, it later transpires, a bank robbery - lands on Damian while he is playing by the railway lines. Initially Damian decides to give the money to charity. Then his father (a dignified James Nesbitt) discovers the secret and, after a deal of moral wrangling, the family succumbs to temptation. In a nice twist, it transpires that Britain is on the brink of joining the euro. Our heroes have only a few days to get rid of the loot.

Few films are so packed with intriguing dilemmas, dizzying plot swerves and startling reversals, but Boyle's direction is so fussy and overwrought the viewer never has time to take anything in. Cotrell Boyce's hugely praised source novel deserved to be treated with more respect. A less hysterical director working with this fine cast and rich plot might have created something magical.