Ray Liotta co-stars as a gangster called Dorothy Macha

The Evening Standard's Derek Malcolm called it a "ridiculous gangster movie" that made "his last disaster" - 2002's Swept Away - "look like a classic".

The Daily Mail's Chris Tookey described the film as a "cinematic catastrophe" that was "agonisingly pretentious".

The Times, meanwhile, dismissed it as a "stodgy, expensive revenge movie".

"Back to back disasters have shattered the director's credibility," continued the paper's critic, James Christopher.

In the same newspaper, Geoff Brown bemoaned the film's "stylistic overkill, incomprehensible plotting and characters nobody cares about".

'Overstretched'

In the film, which had its British premiere in London on Tuesday, actor Jason Statham plays a recently released prisoner with three days to live.

The former Olympic diver's performance was particularly savaged by Mr Tookey, who said he was "spectacularly overstretched".

"His range of expression explores the dramatic gamut from A to Z, with absolutely nothing in between."

Mr Christopher, however, had a few words of faint praise for Statham's co-star Ray Liotta, calling him "the closest we get to light entertainment in a film starved of wit and sex".

All the critics quoted said they were confused by Ritchie's self-penned script, which features flashbacks, animated sequences and scenes that are repeated and played backwards.

"If you can follow the plot you deserve a life membership in Mensa," wrote Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times.