Starring Eugene Hutz and Richard E. Grant. Rated 14A. Plays Friday to Tuesday, December 19 to 23, at the Vancity Theatre

When I become a millionaire megastar and can bankroll my first art-house movie, it will star Ukrainian gypsy punk Eugene Hutz. But although I'll never have the funds to indulge my dreams, Madonna does. In her surprisingly modest directorial debut, Gogol Bordello's mullet-haired frontman is as insanely watchable twirling his handlebar mustache as he was rocking the Commodore last October. He is by far the best thing about Filth and Wisdom, a muddled curiosity that serves up little filth or wisdom.

What it does offer is yet another glimpse into the mind of the Material Girl, who wrote the script with Dan Cadan. Fans will recognize many of the themes from her larger-than life, including starving African children, sexual power, voyeurism, and, of course, schoolgirl skirts. You can also see overtones of Kabbalah: “Filth and wisdom are two sides of the same coin,” Hutz says. Translation: you have to get down and dirty to gain enlightenment.

Thus we have Hutz as A. K., an aspiring musician who pays bills by working as a male version of a dominatrix. His London flatmates are Holly (Holly Weston), a broke ballet dancer who turns to pole dancing, and Jean Seberg look-alike Juliette (Vicky McClure), a pharmacy assistant who dreams of working as a nurse in Africa. Richard E. Grant draws the short straw in the incongruously melodramatic role of a brilliant poet who's gone blind and stopped writing. Aside from Hutz, they all feel like unfinished character studies.

Frenetic zooms and hand-held herky-jerky seem more like an attempt to give Filth and Wisdom DIY cred than anything approaching real visual style.

About the most you can say for Her Madgesty's foray into directing is that it's sweet—and not at all in a Hard Candy way. But the comedy falls flat, and as for the promised filth, it's too tame to be dirty-sexy.

Still, go ahead, Madonna, express yourself: when the scenes turn directionless, at least we know Hutz and his accordion-toting band of lunatics might be right around the corner.