This David Lynch film should have a "Dead End" signpost at its beginning. There is no ending.

Like Twin Peaks, his other serial puzzle that went every which way, ending up nowhere, it's amusing, absorbing, suspenseful, intriguing in parts: more so, perhaps, if seen in weekly segments on TV. But it adds up to nothing. Intended as the pilot for a TV series turned down by a baffled US network, it was " salvaged" by an extra $2 million (£1.4 million) from France's Canal Plus channel, which allowed Lynch the self-indulgence of adding episodes, offering length without direction, creating mystery without explanation.

An anonymous woman about to be murdered survives a car crash on the eponymous Los Angeles driveway. Dazed and bewildered (and amnesiac) she shelters in a handy apartment - just walks in and goes to bed. Meanwhile, Betty, an ingenue from the sticks, arrives at LAX airport to break into movies. A couple of weird guardians drop her at the same apartment and drive off giggling - they're tuned in to the Lynch Zeitgeist where all that happens becomes instantly portentous. Sub-plots queue for admission, then simply segue into pointlessness.

An ace film director, finding his wife in bed with the pool boy, vengefully douses her jewellery with pink paint; neighbours in a seedy office block get accidentally riddled with bullets by a ham-fisted hit man; two mobsters cut some kind of filmland deal that seems to hang on the quality of the espresso coffee they're served; a manipulative mystery man called Cowboy issues orders at midnight on an urban ranch; a gay couple encounter what looks like a monster in a garbage bin. Connect all these elements, and you have a screenplay. Or not. The joke, I fear, is on us.

There will be enough critics praising this surreal pseudery ("explores the nature of narrative") without my hedging bets and saying it may make sense, but requires pondering. It makes no sense at all and arrogantly intends to make none. I was caught out this way first time round with Twin Peaks, but persuaded to go along for the ride: David Lynch won't con me a second time.