AFTER James Bond and Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan tries another way, testing his versatility with pub singing and child rearing in this schmaltzy tale of a family bond.

Breaking away from the smooth manner and bumpy rides of 007, Brosnan plays his Irish charmer card as Desmond Doyle, a struggling carpenter, as often out of work as in it in 1953 Dublin.

When his wife abandons the family home to emigrate with another man, he is left with two sons and darling daughter Evelyn (Sophie Vavasseur) but with mother gone, and only sporadic income, they are taken away from him by the Catholic Church.

Worse still, now his wife is abroad, Doyle will never be able to reclaim them from the orphanage because Irish law does not recognise the rights of a single parent to bring up children.

Through the fug of drowning his sorrows in drink, he tries to take on the system by physical means - a typical scene of humour and pathos - before the path of personal redemption leads him to the bright-spark barmaid at his local, Bernadette (Julianna Marguiles).

She helps him recruit a legal team under her solicitor brother (Stephen Rea), as Doyle prepares to lock horns with the intransigent church and high-minded authorities, the Irish Supreme Court and the law makers.

On his side will be a spruce American lawyer (Aidan Quinn), who just happens to be revisiting his Irish roots, and his grouchy bear of a maverick mentor (Alan Bates), retired from courtroom and rugby field alike but still up for a fight.

Where Peter Mullan has battered and bruised the Catholic Church with the incandescent rage of The Magdalene Sisters, Evelyn is Hollywood slush, stacked with Irish clichs in Paul Pender's screenplay, and full of bravura acting, typified by Bates's roaring turn.

Even though Bruce Beresford's movie is rooted in the hurt of a true story, any anger is consumed by blarney.

While intellectual weight was never on the menu, there should be more emotional clout to such an historic court case story. Instead, little miss Evelyn wins the day in a rising mountain of sugar.

Updated: 08:43 Friday, March 21, 2003