As far as the British film industry goes, there are independent films, and then there are independent films. Recent box office hits The Inbetweeners, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The King's Speech; all of which are technically independent films. But the really independent films would kill for the kinds of budgets these films were made for.

What is blatantly clear, particularly after watching this low budget effort, is that you get what you pay for. And in this case, not very much at all.

Some men know just how to get the girls, and there are others who don't – like James (Simon Phillips). As the opening credits roll James is labelled everything from a nerd, geek and loser. It doesn't take him long to justify all these labels and more.

Tired of not having a girlfriend, who searches online for a course on how to pick up women. When he realises he can't afford the expensive one – run by an enigma called Zeus (Martin Kemp), he searches for the cheapest one possible and it comes out with Ampersand (Craig Conway). Despite being a cheaper option, Ampersand is pretty impressive at picking up the women. He's probably helped by the fact that he's not only read Zeus's manual that contains fifty rules to follow when chatting up women, but he's also memorised them all.

Although Ampersand clearly has his work cut out with James, slowly but surely, the pair start to see results. But James doesn't want to chat up any old woman; he's set his sights way up in the league tables on someone he went to school with, Hannah (Gemma Atkinson). It's obviously an unlikely pairing, but even Ampersand is impressed when James appears to be making inroads with the girl of his dreams. Could it be that James' luck with women is finally turning around, and that he's not quite the loser that everyone – himself included – believe him to be?

You know it's called anorak chic, and you've never complained about it before.

Everyone should have a hobby, but if involves film-making and inflicting the result on an audience, then it might be worth all those concerned with this venture to have a rethink.

First off is the acting. The level attained in something like Grange Hill is Oscar-worthy compared to the non-level reached here. The cast feels like it was made up with those oddballs you see in the audition periods of The X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent, who genuinely believe they've got something special to give to the world. The reality is however, that they've got the kind of presence in front of camera that you find in that section of It'll be Alright on the Night that features normal members of the public who wander into shot on location news reports.

Obviously they need as much help as they can get, which they certainly don't find in the script. In fact it's less a script and more a collection of clichés that have seen better days. Everything is so damn predictable offering nothing that we haven't already seen a hundred times before.

It desperately wants to be one of those über cool coming of age flicks that the Americans do so well, but sadly falls well short and instead has the laugh quota of Mastermind and the sex appeal of Terry and June.

There's nothing wrong with having an independent spirit when it comes to filmmaking, but without any real effort or skill involved, you soon find that it's a fine line between being an independent film and an amateur one.