THE NEW GUY (12A, 88 mins) DJ Qualls, Lyle Lovett. Children can be so cruel and so it seems are Hollywood scriptwriters, tormenting cinema audiences with inane teen comedies.

The New Guy is a pitiful excuse for a film, with barely two half-decent gags in almost 90 minutes.

Astoundingly, Ed Decter's directing debut has managed to avoid an early burial on the straight-to-video shelves.

Nice guy Dizzy (Qualls) is regarded as a misfit and an outcast at his school, Rocky Creek.

There, he and his pals are routinely subjected to beatings and verbal abuse.

They try to avoid the humiliation by throwing all of their energies into their band, in the hope of one day achieving fame and fortune, and proving their tormentors wrong.

After another traumatic encounter with the bullies, Dizzy decides the only course of action is to get himself expelled from school.

He then seeks the help of convict Luther, who promises to turn mild guy Dizzy into a bad-ass son of a gun.

With a new attitude and a new name (Gil), Dizzy starts his new school at Eastland High, and gains respect for being the hardest man on campus.

He even gets a new girlfriend, who dumps her American football jock boyfriend to be with Gil.

Alas, the past has a horrible way of re-emerging when you least expect it, and Gil soon finds his new identity under threat.

Watching The New Guy is not an experience you would wish on your worst enemy. It lacks creativity, while the characters are bland and two-dimensional.

Qualls, last seen in Road Trip, is wasted in the lead role with other characters simply wasting space.

More worryingly, the film contrives an ending in which Luther and his jailhouse buddies (rather than Dizzy) defeat the bullies.

So the lasting message seems to be: fight violence with more brutal violence. Most dubious.

Rating: 1 out of 10