Veteran maverick Robert Altman once optioned Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut's misanthropic comedy of consumerism and cultural bankruptcy, but never got around to the making. It speaks of Dwayne Hoover, used-car king and local hero, whose outward assurance masks a man in terminal decline. His wife is on the prescription drug spiral, while his fey son has adopted the moniker Bunny and turned cheesy, pompadoured lounge act. No wonder the hallucinating Dwayne starts each day clutching a revolver to his quivering lips.

The problem with translating such 70s satire is not simply one of tone. The novel is scattershot, laced not only with Vonnegut's barbed words but his helpful little illustrations; text designed for the page. But that hasn't stopped Altman's erstwhile assistant Alan Rudolph nursing it for over twenty years. Nor leaping in with both feet when Vonnegut fan Bruce Willis came knocking. The results may be uneven, but Breakfast of Champions is still far more satisfying than its obvious cousin, the unjustly venerated American Beauty.

Aside from Willis (choosing the least flashy, almost entirely reactive role of Hoover), the film assembles a really first rate cast. Barbara Hershey is the pill-popping Celia, Glenne Headley fine as gold-digging secretary Francine, and a gnarled Albert Finney puts some fine meat on curmudgeonly old SF writer Kilgore Trout's bones. Trout, whose work is only ever found in obscure "beaver" mags, has been invited to Midland City for its arts festival, his arrival inevitably triggering Dwayne's final epiphany.

Unfortunately, so far as critical and box office opinion are concerned, Rudolph breaks the two golden rules: sticking meticulously close to Vonnegut's original; and playing it as very much an Alan Rudolph Picture. And Rudolph pictures, history tells us, don't sell tickets. Even ones that find space for his muse of choice (and America's best kept acting secret), the shuffling, battered but impossibly elegant Nick Nolte as Dwayne's dragged-up assistant Harry LeSabre.

Nolte (star of earlier Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night) epitomises the director's languorous style - crushed, woozy afternoon hangover camerawork, scenes pushed slightly longer than efficiency demands. It's a lot to fall for, but when you fall you fall hard. And, curiously, Breakfast of Champions, this quintessential paean to urban alienation, seems to the manor born, even with its jump-cuts, lurid colours (Rudolph's never been afraid of neon), dutched angles and lapses into fantasy. Trout's hitchhike across country and Bunny's (Lukas Haas) towering coiffure clearly hark back to touchstones like Made in Heaven and Trouble in Mind.

In the end Vonnegut readers will probably balk at seeing him filmed anyway, while Willis' usual admirers will simply be perplexed by their hero's gawky self-doubt and the picture's wilful lack of narrative. And yet, somehow, it all comes together in a strikingly sentimental close, thanks in no small part to Mark Isham'a outstanding score. Bruce Willis' 110 minute suicide note or another heartrending love letter from the ever resourceful Rudolph? The choice, dear reader, is now yours.