It is not altogether surprising that much of Abel Ferrara's fitful dramatised essay on the last days of Pier Paolo Pasolini tastes a little like dilute solutions of that Italian director's work. After all, the film finds time to stage sections of Pasolini's unfinished novel Petrolio (gay pick ups in scrublands outside Rome) and mount scenes from his proposed film Porno-Teo-Kolossal (fantastic adventures in a sexually liberated metropolis).

What does set one back a little is the fact that Pasolini seems so much like underpowered, ersatz Ferrara. For all the decadence on display this is – from the director of Bad Lieutenant and the recent Welcome to New York – a disappointingly well-behaved piece of work. Was the old rebel a little cowed by proximity to the master?

The casting of Willem Dafoe in the title role cannot be faulted (even if it contributes to the strange bi-lingual nature of the dialogue). Similarly gouged in his features, equally ugly-beautiful, Dafoe makes sense as an intellectual with a taste for intellectual risk-taking.

It is 1975 and Pasolini is putting the finishing touches to his notorious Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom. He gives his views on art and the social struggle to a journalist. He meets a younger man and takes him to a restaurant in a seaside suburb. We view those interpretations of later works.

The decision to base so much of the film on existing text – the interviews, the manuscript, the screenplay – lend a deadening dryness to much of Pasolini. It is hard to imagine anybody not already acquainted with the director’s work giving a hoot about those sections.

The film does, however, succeed as a celebration of high-brow hipster chic. Soaked in sepulchral shades by Stefano Falivene, it allows Dafoe to simmer intelligently in smart cars, good leather jackets and suave spectacles.

Pasolini might not have much enjoyed Ferrara’s piece, but he would surely have been flattered all the same. DONALD CLARKE