As first kisses go, it's a cinematic doozy: Brusque young thug drags his meek new wallflower girlfriend to a towering seaside cliff, positions her just inches from the edge and locks lips. Will he push her off or call for a second date?

For all its attempts at noirish grit and exposing the dark underbelly of the human psyche, however, Rowan Joffe's "Brighton Rock" never achieves the full-blown combustibility it wants. Nor when it shifts into tentative caper mode does it deliver its few stabs at black-comic tartness. Gorgeously shot, the film nevertheless remains bleak and overwrought – an oddly updated and stilted interpretation of a classic British writer's work. (The Fresno Filmworks presentation plays today only at the Tower Theatre.)

The man on the cliff is Pinkie (a somber Sam Riley), a thug with a baby face and a burning desire to get ahead in the local mob scene. His viciousness knows no bounds, as evidenced by his willingness to bash in a rival's face with a rock.

Unfortunately for Pinkie, even in the rough-and-tumble coastal city of Brighton – which is depicted as a bleak, faded place in the grip of petty criminals and rioting youths – murder has consequences. There's a potential witness to the crime: an awkward young waitress named Rose (Andrea Riseborough), who takes one look at the menacing Pinkie and is smitten.

Adding a great deal of crispness to the situation is the always electric Helen Mirren as Rose's hard-bitten boss, who takes a personal interest in the murder as well.

"Brighton Rock" is a remake of the classic 1947 film, which adapted Graham Greene's 1938 novel. Joffe updated the setting to 1964, when the Mods and Rockers were rioting in England.

The time shift seems awkward. It's hard to put a finger on why, but perhaps one reason is that Joffe's visuals – his strongest suit – are so keyed to the faded-glory magnificence of the famed Brighton Pier, where several key scenes take place. There's a vintage-postcard brittleness to the color in this film and a hard quality to the light, as if it's been scraped and scrubbed.

It just feels like the 1930s.

You could argue that the eye-rolling gender roles belong in a farther-away decade as well. Rose's attitude toward romance is sad and pathetic, much like her shy and unloved character, and her determination to connect with a man is portrayed with such broad strokes that it comes across as tired sexist stuff. How far will the virginal Plain Jane character go in terms of tolerating a goon boyfriend?

Riley plays the Pinkie role so coldly that it's hard to feel any heat from the character.

And Riseborough's tortured innocent routine makes it hard to find much depth there as well.

Still, there's that breathtaking first kiss. It's nearly the stuff of nightmares.

Just a step backward, and it would be her last kiss as well.

It's too bad that "Brighton Rock" as a whole couldn't match that intersection of passion and danger.