Offence taken

This broad comedy from some people connected with the similarly titled and similarly empty-headed Road Trip piles up such a mass of offensive material and packs it so densely together that it is almost impossible not be dragged into its gravitational pull.

There is something to appal almost every one of the European Union's 450 million citizens in Jeff Schaffer's tale of young Americans abroad. Many of our friends from the recent accession states will take offence at the scene where the kids disembark amid massively bleak tower blocks and rotting dog carcasses to exclaim: "Dear sweet mother of God! We're in eastern Europe." Italians - and Catholics everywhere - will be similarly taken aback by the Vatican-trashing finale. We Irish get a chance to fulminate when a briefly glimpsed graphic implies that the whole island is part of the United Kingdom. But the most extraordinary scene involves a playful young German tyke with a talent for impersonation. "Please do Jimmy Cagney!" Polly from Fawlty Towers might have implored. He doesn't.

In the film's defence, the script is equally hard on its heroes and contains some of the best jokes I have heard about American ignorance of geography for some time. "Oh, Europe's about the size of the Eastwood Mall," young Cooper (Jacob Pitts) says when his buddy Scott (Scott Mechlowicz) suggests that they head across the Atlantic in search of the hot German chick (their argot is catching) with whom he has been corresponding by e-mail. And, though we Europeans are presented as more violent, depraved, cash-strapped and plain weird than the Americans, we are also seen to be a lot brighter.

That does not make the various factual errors any less annoying. In the picture there is no drinking age in Britain, the US dollar is strong against the euro and none of the Manchester United fans featured - their leader is Vinnie Jones - is from anywhere north of Watford. Actually, come to think of it, that last one is spot on.