The new English comedy Still Crazy chronicles the haphazard resurrection of Strange Fruit, a fictitious seventies rock group ala Mott the Hoople and Slade that self-destructed before achieving legendary status.

The movie opens up in 1978 at a disastrous outdoor rock festival during which a potentially triumphant and career-defining performance by Strange Fruit collapses among hard drugs, heated band tensions, and finally divine intervention via a lightening bolt from the heavens.

Amid this maelstrom of bad mojo, Strange Fruit break up and go their separate ways, but as we fast forward to the present day, we find that in the 20 years since the band imploded, the members' lives for the most part have taken a turn for the worse.

Stephen Rea (credits include The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins, The Crying Game, and Interview with the Vampire), as the scheming keyboardist Tony, is perhaps the most bitter about their missed opportunity at rock 'n' roll immortality, but he remains the embodiment of the Fruit's ethos of "never surrender!" While on his daily route restocking lavatory condom machines, he is offered a chance to reform the band for another round of gigs on the nostalgia circuit.

A combination of curiosity, desperation and just plain ol' stupidity causes him to look up his old band mates, but he finds them too reluctant to drag their middle-aged butts up on-stage to make fools of themselves all over again (a sentiment I wish the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith would consider). Their sense of shame, however, soon gives way to the promise of one last chance at glory, greatness and the fulfillment of Strange Fruit's unrealized dreams and unreached potential.

The only stumbling block to reforming the original line-up (besides a previous member's drug overdose and a lead guitarist in the loony bin) is flake-ish singer Ray (Bill Nighy as the perfect aging space cadet) and his Swedish, pit-bull of a wife Astrid (played by Helena Bergstrom who turns in a killer performance that's part Zsa Zsa Gabor and part Ling from Ally McBeal). Astrid forbids Ray from joining the reunion, but financial difficulties force them both to swallow their pride and soon enough, they are all packed into a psychedelic purple bus and embark on a tour of European hell-holes and dance halls.

It's over the course of this reunion tour that old wounds are opened, bitter rivalries are re-ignited and a whole lot of hilarious bickering and hijinks ensue that remind the band why they broke up in the first place.

Wankerish lead-throat Ray (who sort of reminds me of Sting) and his New Agey clean-living lifestyle is particularly singled out for merciless ridicule by the band. After years of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, he's now traded in his bottle of Jack Daniels for a bottle of Evian, given up smoking pot for holistic aromatherapy and raising hell for chanting Zen quotations he doesn't quite understand.

Eventually the band gets it together for one last hurrah in a finale that's a little too touchy-feely for me, but not as sappy as it could have been, I guess. Their rise from the ashes of rock 'n' roll is not really phoenix-like, (it's more akin to pulling a Swanson's Hungry Man Chicken Dinner out of the microwave), but the ending puts a nice happy spin on things.

Though similar to the Commitments (aging English rockers out on the road), Still Crazy is less Spinal Tap than the former with a shot of the Bad News Bears thrown in for good measure.

The film, perhaps, has even more in common with Todd Haynes' recent snoozer Velvet Goldmine, except that Still Crazy tackles the glam-rock movement of the '70s from a far more interesting angle: the skewed hindsight of middle age. Their tortured flashbacks, comical reminiscences and failed attempts to relive their golden years give an infinitely more telling tale of what rock and roll means than the two-hour art film that was Velvet Goldmine.

Where Velvet Goldmine is drawn out, Still Crazy is well paced and energetic. Where Velvet Goldmine was pretentious, Still Crazy is funny, endearing and just plain weird.

About the only category that Still Crazy looses out to Velvet Goldmine in is the music. As much as I disliked Goldmine as a film, its soundtrack did kick ass in a major way. This is not to say that the music in Still Crazy is not any good (it sounds like Bon Jovi's Greatest Hits remixed by Steve Albini), but it merely serves as perfunctory background noise instead of jumping out at you to accentuate the scenes.

What this movie has in spades though is great comedy writing and exceptionally good performances. Of particular note are Billy Connolly (the Scottish actor/comedian well known for replacing Dr. Johnny Fever on "Head of the Class" and for his leading role in Mrs. Brown) who plays the loony road manager. Timothy Spall (best known for the overweight portrait photographer in Secrets and Lies) who plays the dim, but lovable drummer Beano and Juliet Aubrey as Karen, the former groupie and nurse maid to the band whose heart o' gold helps hold Strange Fruit together.

It's a comedy sure to please both VH-1'ers eager for glam-rock nostalgia, as well as anyone who's a fan of Brit comedies like The Full Monty and Train Spotting (well, I thought Train Spotting was funny).