Search: Directed by David O Russell

Bradley Cooper as Richie gives the finest madcap performance of his career.

David O Russell's latest - a shaggy dog mystery with a deliberate air of penny dreadfuls - could do with more straightforward narrative and fewer screwball convolutions.

Christian Bale - reduced lately to whispering solemnity in the likes of Dark Knight and Terminator Salvation - gets to really cut loose with Dicky in a performance that is sure to give Geoffrey Rush a run for his money on Oscar night.

David O Russell, however, has turned a difficult subject into an irreverent road movie that runs away with itself.

This is as inventive and left field as Being John Malkovich, but with broader smiles and bigger issues.

As wild as it seems at times, the film is deeply grounded in an emotional truth for each of the protagonists.

Russell impressively couples gambling strategies with self-help mantras to expose the machinations of searching minds who don't know how to flee the ugly banal lives of most common betrayals and economic anxieties.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is just another buddy-buddy war picture. It is something really rather unique.