Plastic – Review by Frances Winston.

Directed by: Julian Gilbey

Starring: Ed Speleers, Alfie Allen, Will Poulter, Sebastian de Souza, Emma Rigby

In cinemas April 30th

Heist drama’s tend to be a genre that British moviemakers handle well and couple that with an extremely good looking cast and sun soaked locations (for part of the movie) and you would appear to have the formula for a sure fire hit. However this movie doesn’t quite seem to know who it is trying to appeal too so it throws far too much at a viewer. Based (one must assume extremely loosely) on a real heist the story is at times completely incredulous so I can only assume they took a lot of artistic licence with the facts while the characters are completely cliché driven.

Downton Abbey star Speleers steps out of his livery to play Sam who alongside his friend Fordy, played by Meet The Millers star Poulter, runs a credit card fraud scam which allows them to live quite a nice lifestyle considering they are students.

Assisted by their friends Yatesy and Rafa (Allen and DeSouza) they buy expensive items online using other people’s credit card details and then sell them on at a profit. However even small time fraudsters can find themselves out of their depth and they inadvertently end up in debt to a big time gangster. Realising that they will have to expand their operation to clear what they owe they recruit Frankie (Rigby) who works as a data processor for a large credit card company. Jetting off to Miami they start scamming several big fish before they realise that one big diamond heist could pay the debt and set them up for life. Cue much clandestine activity as they convince a top jeweller that Rafa is a Prince who is getting engaged as they set about stealing a rare coloured diamond collection.

Although Sam is supposed to be smart it is very difficult to believe that this mish mash of a group could pull off a complex heist like this. When they casually jet off to Miami to try and raise the funds to pay their debt you do find yourself slightly bemused by the premise. It doesn’t help that the movie is riddled with stereotypes.

Name a con man or gangster cliché and you will find it here. Speleers and Poulter do their best with a really weak script but the other actors pretty much go through the motions adding to the formulaic feel of the movie. The story is pretty ridiculous and doesn’t flow well at all. There are too many contradictions and not enough character development. Just when you think they can’t possibly go off on any more ridiculous tangents they manage to throw yet more at you.

This is not nearly as smart and sexy as it thinks that it is. It’s as if it’s trying to be a cross between Hustle and Ocean’s 11 but it fails miserably. It is all over the place and no plot point or sub plot is given enough attention or developed enough for you to care about it. Personally I’d wait until you can rent this in the comfort of your own home to watch it.