VADIM Perelman's psychological thriller is built on sand and fog rather than smoke and mirrors.

Everything is as it seems, but the lives involved are built on quicksand and their fixtures and fittings are as permanent as fog.

The American Dream receives a hammering on all sides in this feuding and tragic culture clash of two people who will not relent, feel injustice and can see only ill will in the other's point of view.

Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is a junkie in shaky recovery: her family keeps her at arm's length, her mother unable to hide her disappointment. All Kathy has is her battered, basic but cherished house by the sea, and now that is being taken away from her. She is evicted through erroneous red tape, and there is nothing she can do to prevent her home being sold at auction.

Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), a former Iranian general forced to flee with his family, has settled on a new life in America, working shifts on road-building gangs and behind the gas station counter, but never forgetting he is The Colonel, full of pristine pride. Seeing the auction advert he spots the chance to make a killing on the property market, by buying the house, renovating it and selling it on again to give his family the chance to thrive and his son the opportunity to go to university.

Both will fight for their right to the house, as the intransigent force meets the immovable objector. You can understand why Behrani would want to pursue his course of action, even if you may quibble at the morality of his actions. Likewise, you can feel sympathy for the destitute, despondent Kathy in her sense of loss, but she sends out confused messages in making a play for the deputy sheriff (Ron Eldard). Is she sincere, is she calculate, or just desperate?

The answer comes when she reaches for the bottle and the gun, trying to kill herself in her car on Behrani's doorstep. The resolute Colonel faces conflicting reactions from wife and son, and House Of Sand And Fog breaks out from its tight grip into a vortex of anger and brutal consequence.

Perelman's film rocks between the very good and the over the top, but its sense of mutual bitterness is testament to the craft of the ever compelling Kingsley and fascinating Connelly.

Updated: 15:40 Thursday, February 26, 2004