Ever since his short story '3:10 To Yuma' was first turned into a film over 50 years ago, Elmore Leonard has been a go-to-guy for Hollywood. But the big screen results have always been variable. Just consider the past decade. For every Tarantino hit ('Jackie Brown'), there's the straight-to-DVD Own Wilson flop 'The Big Bounce'. For every Travolta career comeback ('Get Shorty'), there's a Travolta disaster ('Be Cool'). And for every 'Out Of Sight', which proved briefly that Jennifer Lopez can act, there's a 'Killshot'.

Not that the latest adaptation of his writing is an outright disaster. This thriller has plenty of potential: strong source material, an award-winning director ('Shakespeare in Love's John Madden) and a strong cast (Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Rosario Dawson). But like the hot-headed loser played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it pisses that potential away. And, like Rourke's ageing hitman, ultimately misses the target.

It's telling that the completed project was sent to swim with the fishes for three years until Rourke's 'The Wrestler' rebirth finally triggered an appropriately low-key release: there's little to cheer about here. A familiar tale of a couple on the run from two hitmen, 'Killshot' is overly simple and rather pedestrian.

With the Tarantino-inspired dialogue-about-nothing lacking bite and originality, the characters themselves are reduced to stereotypes. Only Rourke, his vigilance masked by jaded world weariness and those sad eyes, really delivers the goods but, in so doing, highlights Gordon-Levitt's embarrassing and annoying overacting.

Not a Leonard film classic, then.