After the death of her domineering husband, downtrodden housewife Thelma Caldicot (Pauline Collins) starts to rebel.

First she cuts up her dear departed's golf clubs with a hacksaw. Then snips the heads off his prize-winning chrysanthemums.

But when her greedy son ships her off to the Twilight Years Rest Home in a bid to get his hands on her estate, her rebellion takes a very different turn.

Appalled by the treatment her fellow senior citizens are receiving from the uncaring staff and manager (John Alderton), Mrs Caldicot organizes a revolution amongst the wrinklies. They refuse to eat the endless cabbage dinners the staff serve them and sneak out of the home for some proper fun on the bowling green.

Screenwriter Malcolm Stone's adaptation of Vernon Coleman's novel is commendable in its desire to remind us that being old doesn't equate with being dead.

Highlighting the appalling conditions that exist in some UK rest homes, its "message" is an important one. It's just a shame that director Ian Sharp seems content to direct it into retirement.

Playing like an extended TV sitcom, but without the laughs (real or canned), this is more like Both Feet in the Grave than anything resembling a feature film.

"Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War" trades on a series of ludicrous clichés - while the patients eat cabbage, the manager feasts on lobster and chases the home's matron around the desk with all the 'hilarity' of a "Carry On Doctor" skit. It treats its serious subject matter with a patronising air.

Lacking in laughs and light on radical zeal, this is the kind of unambitious British cinema that should have been pensioned off a long time ago.