London Film Festival: Pi

Pi (dir Darren Aronofsky, starring Sean Gullette and Mark Margolis)

Darren Aronofsky is one of those people who gets everyone he knows to sponsor his first low-budget feature, and had the irritating, brazen cheek to pull it all off. Shot in New York's finest black and white grime-o- vision, to a British trip-hop soundtrack, it tells the story of a geeky maths wizard, Maximilian (Sean Gullette), who devotes his every waking, migraine-wracked hour to creating a mathematical equation that will enable him to predict stock market prices. Exactly why anyone so unworldly should be preoccupied with applying "chaos theory" (yup, we learnt all about it in Jurassic Park) to moneymaking is a mystery.

Perhaps sensing this, Aronofsky ups the pre-millennial torsion by introducing a crazed sect of Jewish mystics to the set-up, who believe that Maximilian's computer system could just as easily be used to work out the name of God (expressed only in numbers, since it can't be uttered). Things get worse for Maximilian when goons from some faceless banking zone also descend on him - they too want his formulation. Part X-Files, part drunk Tarantino squashing his face against the MTV screen, this is nevertheless a very enjoyable piece of roach-like US paranoia which is proving to be its best export in the late 20th century. If Burroughs were alive, he'd cameo in it, because you can be sure Aronofsky would have camped out on his doorstep until he agreed.