Ken Loach is a director that usually tackles downbeat, morose and depressing stories, and although Looking For Eric can be at times all those it finishes up as a fun and heart-warming tale.

Middle-aged Manchester United fanatic Eric Bishop (Evets) suffers from depression and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown: his second wife has left him with two wayward kids (not his own) and his postman job barely pays the bills. Eric spends his nights either in the pub or in his room, where he smokes grass stolen from his stepson Ryan’s (Kearns) secret stash. It’s here that his hero Eric Cantona (playing himself) appears to him, offering him life advice and how to get back his Lily (Bishop), his first wife and the love of his life, with whom he has a daughter. However, when Ryan is asked to hold a gun for his drug-dealing, nightclub owner ‘friend’, Eric is dragged into a seedy underworld he knows nothing about and needs the Frenchman’s tactical nous to pull out of it.

Taking its cue from Play It Again, Sam (where Woody Allen’s hero Humphrey Bogart appeared to offer advice) and True Romance (where Val Kilmer’s Elvis appeared to Christian Slater to assure what Slater knew all along - that he’s cool), Looking For Eric can be as bizarre, ridiculous and fun as its older brothers. Gloomy and cynical on one hand, romantic and optimistic on the other, the plot encompasses a lot of genres in its short running time and even though the tone might be a little all over shop the story still manages to work. And great one-liners abound: "I’ve had it up to here with your philosophies. I’m still getting over that seagull one" and "I am not a man. I am Cantona!"

It does tend to lapse into ‘remember when’ territory with the two Eric's reminiscing over Cantona’s previous triumphs (Cantona’s favourite football memory is not a goal, by the way - it was a pass) but in having Eric Cantona in a film playing Eric Cantona that was always going to be unavoidable. TV actor Evets takes to his first lead role with confidence and although this mightn’t be Cantona’s first appearance on film, the ex-footballer turns in a performance typical of the man’s self-belief on the pitch. His mumbling, however, is sometimes hard to make out. The two leads are backed up by a wealth of talent: Shameless’ Kearns shows that his early promise wasn’t a fluke, while John Henshaw (The Royle Family) and Justin Moorhouse (Phoenix Nights’ Young Kenny) delight as Eric’s sidekicks. Stephanie Bishop, as the only woman lumped into a film about men, holds her own and brings a much-needed femininity to the proceedings.

The crowd-pleasing finale might descend into a school-bully-gets-his-comeuppance afternoon special but by that stage you won’t care. And you don’t have to be a Man U fan to enjoy it, either.

Review by Gavin Burke