Somewhere there's a dictionary that defines the word quirky by 'See Hal Hartley'. Over various shorts and three features he's developed a extremely individual world, peopled by the walking wounded, simultaneously very ordinary and at once visitors from another planet; deliberately stylised, with seductive sparse scores from the director's alter-ego Ned Rifle. Full of irony, wit and invention, packed with cherishable moments, they possess a firm back-bone that stops them straying into whimsy, but remain ardently un-Hollywood to an admirable, defiant degree.

We join Simple Men mid-robbery ("Don't move!") where the partners of Bill McCabe (Robert Burke) select this most inopportune of moments to pay him off, his agonies quickly added to by the discovery that his long-lost father - an ex-ball player who disappeared years earlier under a cloud on being accused of the anarchist bombing of the Pentagon - is in hospital. When he escapes, Bill reluctantly joins younger brother Dennis (William Sage) on a quest to find the old man.

Despite being schematic enough to be accused of plot ("Don't Move," is also the last thing we hear), Simple Men is very much Hal Hartley. The intrigues that propel the brothers to backwoods Long Island are promptly dispensed with in favour of the off-beam humour and left-field characterisation that serve to make Trust and The Unbelievable Truth such cult favourites - romantic interest with divorcee diner owner Kate (Karen Sillas) and epileptic Romanian Elina (Elina Lowensohn), and antagonism delivered in supporting roles by Martin, the wonderfully surly boat-owner (Martin Donovan), and Damien Young's deliciously manic depressive sheriff.

As before, Simple Men is driven by plentiful ideas and digressions that keep it moving without overloading the slender narrative or needing to resort to unwarranted pyrotechnics. The director cannot be accused of spicing up the weirdness for weirdness's sake, settling instead on an unfeigned idiosyncrasy, while dialogue is frequently elliptical and repetitious, recalling a less explicit David Mamet, succeeding in being genuinely funny - witness Young especially - without need for actual jokes. The key players all acquit themselves superbly, Burke (The Unbelievable Truth) is suitably world-weary and laconic, Sage prefers dazed and confused, and Lowensohn is exquisitely off-world, particularly in the gloriously deadpan dance routine to Sonic Youth's 'Kool Thing' that engulfs everyone mid-film. A small but very definite gem.