“DID you get the answers you needed?”.

“No, I ordered a sandwich”.

That may well go down as one of the most memorable movie punchlines of recent years.

The conversation happens as Craig Waterman (played by Saturday Night Live comic Tim Robinson) licks the backside of a toad in the storeroom of a mobile phone shop.

That might sound zany, but this black comedy has an unsettling edge.

Robinson plays the seemingly regular guy Craig who wears beige clothes, works in marketing and lives in American suburbia.

His new neighbour Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd) is the complete opposite.

He’s a TV weatherman who sings in a punk rock band and wears a cravat (not at the same time).

Despite appearing to have little in common, Craig quickly forms a close bond with his rebellious new pal.

But he does not have the social skills to fit in with Austin’s friends.

And his inability to judge reasonable boundaries gets him into deeper and deeper trouble.

As Craig’s life spirals further out of control, the cringe factor keeps rising and rising.

I had to close my eyes at times because the embarrassing moments were hard to watch.

Like David Brent from The Office, he’s desperate to seem cool, without having any idea of what that takes.

Asking anyone he comes across if they’d like to share a beer is not the way to form new friendships.

The difference between Ricky Gervais’s creation and Robinson’s is that Craig has an angry side, which makes him less easy to empathise with.

All the sympathy is with his long-suffering wife Tami, excellently played by Kate Mara.

It is also hard to believe that someone who once boasted he campaigned for speed bumps to be put into the neighbourhood can end up getting in so much trouble with the law.

These faults will probably prevent Friendship becoming a box office hit.

But there are so many scenes I find hard to get out of my head that I think this film could become a cult classic.

And the way Robinson throws himself, quite literally at times, into the role should make him a star.

If you enjoy toe-curling dark humour, Friendship is the kind of movie you’ll be telling your besties about.

HOW did Rihanna end up as a blonde Smurf riding in a kangaroo pouch next to one of the blue-skinned creatures voiced by James Corden?

Even Corden’s Smurf No Name comments the marsupial bit is “weird”.

It’s not exactly in keeping with the Umbrella singer’s tattooed and edgy image.

Surely her agent could come up with a better starring role than one where she has to deliver naff lines?

But with John Goodman, Kurt Russell and Hannah Waddingham also lending their voices to the film, Rihanna is in good company.

Despite having plot turns as old as Papa Smurf, this movie does manage to entertain. Director Chris Miller, best known for Puss In Boots, throws in so many gags enough of them land.

Sound Effect Smurf, who can always be relied on to make a funny noise, is one of those winning jokes.

The surreal elements will also keep the grown-ups engaged during this part-live action, part-animated film. Just when you’re getting bored something odd will happen so you think, “What’s going on?”

I’m sure Rihanna must have felt the same way when she watched it.

IN the opening shot, Pierce Brosnan stands with wild, long gray hair on windswept sands in front of a canvas.

His character William Coughlan – father of protagonist Nicholas – gave up his office job in 1971 as God told him he had to paint.

On the Irish island he’s painting, Helena Bonham Carter plays the mother of an ­independent-minded girl and a disabled boy.

Fate will bring their children together in this sentimental drama, adapted from Niall Williams’s 1997 bestseller of the same title.

But it takes itself a bit too seriously. Expect lots of profound statements such as “both of us locked in the prison of a single goal”.

Pierce’s eyebrows are knitted together in such artistic anguish I fear he’ll need a surgeon to separate them.

There is also a woman with wild white hair whose purpose is never stated and is like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne, though, make for lovable parents and I expect we’ll be seeing more of Ann Skelly, who impresses as their daughter Isabel.

Four Letters delivers when it’s whimsically funny, but is second class when grasping for wisdom.   

GRANT ROLLINGS