The first feature by French director Erick Zonca, The Dream Life of Angels, was an unexpected hit with art-house audiences last year. It benefited from two charismatic female leads, but Zonca's follow-up, the hour-long Smalltime Thief (Le Petit Voleur) shows that charisma doesn't interest him much.

Esse, played by newcomer Nicolas Duvauchelle, joins a gang of lowlifes, all toting ludicrous noms de guerre like Eye and Jackal. But as Esse gets his unsentimental education, his new life turns out to involve even more drudgery than his old job in the bakery.

French cinema produces plenty of criminal-apprenticeship stories, but Smalltime Thief breaks the mould because it never allows us an iota of glamour. Esse's first job, for example, is to clean and shop for an old woman. The film's one real comic moment is when he succeeds in nutting himself on the door frame.

Duvauchelle cuts a convincingly taciturn, ineffectual figure, so much so that Zonca largely appears to treat him with contempt. Perhaps there's something schematic about his ignominious odyssey, with the payoff suggesting that Esse is as malleable as the bread he kneads, but Zonca lets us reach our own conclusions. This is realism carried off with merciless concentration.

Zonca has yet to make his masterpiece, but this concise moral tale shows a steelier sensibility than his first film let you suspect. Whether it will get British distribution - given its awkward length - remains to be seen.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible