Little Fish (15)

Little Fish is one of those downbeat indie dramas which you watch with the sure and certain knowledge that some of its cast of ex-junkies and not-quite-ex-junkies are going to end up dead. Using her native accent for once, Cate Blanchett stars as a reformed addict who now works as a video shop manager in a Vietnamese suburb of Sydney. Martin Henderson plays her brother, who is planning a major drug deal. A surrogate father to them both, Hugo Weaving is a former rugby pro whose heroin supply is about to dry up now that Sam Neill's crime lord is retiring.

Not many films give their characters such rich histories, so it's obvious why Little Fish attracted such a stellar cast. But once the scene has been set, the film peters out, as if it were a pilot for an unmade TV series.