"BASED on a Stephen King story" - it's a tagline that yields a mixed bag of results. For every Stand By Me, The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption, there is Children Of The Corn, Graveyard Shift, Thinner, Dreamcatcher, The Mangler... the list goes on.

This revenge saga, based on one of the horror masters short stories, is nowhere near as bad as Sleepwalkers, but it's certainly no Green Mile.

Bentley plays Robinson, who's wife is murdered by people smuggler Jimmy Dolan (Slater) after she accidentally catches him in the middle of a killing spree.

Soon Robinson has gone from mild-mannered school teacher to vengeance-hungry alcoholic. But can he get some retributive justice on a man as well protected as Dolan?

It's a slow slog before Dolan's Cadillac gets good, with the first act particularly a struggle. Dead-eyed Bentley and scenery-chewing Slater seem woefully miscast for much of the film and the screenwriter tries hard to be deep and meaningful but it's at the expense of some decent characterisation.

Having said that, Robinson's bizarre revenge plot and his final showdown with Dolan work excellently and we finally see Bentley, Slater and the script come in to their own.

It's a wobbly road to get to the pay-off and it almost makes the rest of the journey worthwhile, but ultimately Dolan's Cadillac struggles to sustain its short story-plot across a feature length - maybe this should have been an hour-long telemovie.