No, that 18 certificate is no mistake. After the sugary lightness of Woody Allen’s Parisian/Venetian candyfloss hoofathon Everyone Says I Love You, Deconstructing Harry comes on like a good, swift, New York kick in the teeth. It's a nasty picture. Not nasty like Abel Ferrara, maybe (Woody shooting up? full frontal? spare us), but nasty for him. And spicily so for us.

He's Harry Block, successful novelist and all round shit. He's shitty to friends and ex-lovers alike, plundering his and their lives for his books. And he's Woody Allen playing Harry Block, so you ain't going to spend too long looking for the cracks between this character and just about everything he's ever done. Block is priapic, self-regarding and neurotic, but -- and here's the twist -- he's also foul-mouthed. There are words here you never thought you'd hear Woody Allen spew, let alone repeat. And some gratuitous nudity. Shit or get off the pot.

So let's push the envelope a little and suggest that this is also a road movie. Harry's life consists pretty much of two things at the point we meet: a writer's block (subtle) that causes him to meet his own characters; and the trip to his old alma mater to receive an honorary fellowship. That latter is the road bit -- undertaken with his kidnapped son (hold onto your hat, Mia), his best friend, and Cookie, a brassy black hooker in vivid pink hotpants. (His first substantial black role and, hey, she's a whore, but at least Hazelle Goodman works wonders with the part.) That'll be Stardust Memories with swearing, then.

Allen's point, though, is to alternate scenes from Harry's life with dramatisations of his books, and those are the bits that work best. Essentially a string of routines given film form, they give the 62-year-old the opportunity to take a bone fide star like, say, Robin Williams and shoot him totally out of focus for five minutes. You can do that when you're Woody Allen.

And you also get to marshal the kind of cast Spielberg would garrotte ET for -- all for the love of the funny little Jew. Thus there's a superb (is she ever less?) Judy Davis, Kirstie Allie, Demi Moore, Richard Benjamin, Billy Crystal (entertaining, for once; really), Stanley Tucci, Eric Bogosian and Elizabeth Shue all cluttering up the scenery, often on blink-and-they're-gone visits. (Would that others could get Ms Moore to disappear with such alacrity.)

Do you want to discuss the obvious Late Review premise -- that this is really Woody playing himself, with all the psychological incites we can dredge from the Freudian mire? No, you don't. You want to know how it measures up in the gag stakes, and on that simple score this is right up there with the funnier later pictures. That's its measure: it's called Deconstructing Harry, it's by Woody Allen, he's in it (because he's always in his best stuff), and it's very funny. He works on an ON/OFF cycle, and this is very much ON. The blanks you can fill in for your-fucking-selves.