A film about a deaf Ibiza DJ. Where did it all go pete tong, asks Donald Clarke

The most notable difference between This is Spinal Tap and It's All Gone Pete Tong - well, aside from the fact that one is a work of genius and the other stinks - is to do with how preposterous the film-makers allow the musical genres at the heart of the movies to appear. The men behind Tap could not have written those hilarious songs without an understanding of heavy metal's appeal, but the music was never presented as anything other than pompous, bombastic and crude.

Though It's All Gone Pete Tong does take some pot-shots at the Ibiza rave scene, the film-makers clearly still believe that creating - or, rather, assembling - this cold, utilitarian dance music requires some sort of genius. The sight of an Ibiza DJ continuing his work despite having gone profoundly deaf is, I think, supposed to astonish us. Do I sense you shrugging your shoulders?

The first half of Michael Dowse's scrappy film, which can never quite decide if it is a mock documentary or not, details the rise and rise of Frankie Wilde. Lauded by real-life DJ's such as Pete Tong himself - "He's a genius, you know" - this hairy oik has managed to convince those who care about such things that his ways with the turntable enable transcendence (and so on). Just in case the target audience is too chemically addled to get the message, Dowse shows Frankie, played competently enough by Paul Kaye, presiding over his congregation with arms outstretched and a crown of thorns on his shaggy head. The picture becomes less subtle as it progresses.

Despite his success, Frankie has problems. His cocaine addiction has reached such a point that he imagines himself pursued by a large shaggy badger with a powdery nose. His girlfriend is losing interest in him and his experiments in fusing rock with rave are going nowhere. Then he discovers that he is going deaf.

With stomach-churning suddenness the film turns from a perfectly serviceable post-Trainspotting romp into an inspirational drama about overcoming adversity, living your dream and all that baloney. As I understand it, one of the DJ's prime objectives is to satisfactorily mesh together apparently incompatible themes. Mr Dowse should, on this evidence, stay well away from the decks.