Review: Plastic

Plastic
Cert: 15 / 102 mins / Dir. Julian Gilbey




Well, the events which the film's based on may be "real", but it seems like the people who carried them out watched as many gangster flicks and episodes of Hustle as the four (yes, four) writers did.

Director Julian Gilbey's opening gambit, a voiceover by head scamster Sam, sets a bar which the film largely fails to pass. "How things start shouldn't matter. It's how they end that's important…". Which is an interesting premise, because Plastic starts like a second-rate Lock, Stock clone, and by the end that hasn't changed.

Every bit as shallow and superficial as the title might suggest, Plastic has the indie-edged eye-candy you'd expect, but no real muscle to back it up. There's no weight to anything which happens in the film's 102 minutes, and Gilbey spends so much time showing you how unlikeable all of the characters are, that by the time the guns are drawn in the third act, you really don't mind who lives or dies either way.

On an individual level (with one exception), the young leads give a credible, if slightly underwritten, performance. That exception would be Alfie Allen as 'Yatesy', who seems to have embraced his part as chief-arsehole with a little too much relish. He over-eggs the 'bastard' pudding pretty much from the word go, channelling the spite and cowardice (and hair) of Trainspotting's Sick Boy, but with none of that character's charisma.

If Plastic had anywhere near the gravitas it thinks it has, it'd be a far more engaging film. As it stands, it's entertaining enough, but instantly forgettable.
A bunch of kids playing in Guy Ritchie's sandpit*¹ *².

Pretty much, yes.



Not as much as the writers intended, no.



Not nearly.



This is a £2.99 DVD on a Saturday night with some beers.



Nah.



Probably at some point, but it won't be the main event of the evening.



I didn't hear one.

Is the line "What kind of twat goes all in on two-pair?" intended as a surreptitious reference to Only Fools & Horses?

Because if it is I approve, wholeheartedly.

*¹ To the point where the best scene in the film features Gorgeous George and Vinny from Snatch.
*² I don't care what you say, Lock, Stock, Snatch and Rock'n'Rolla are masterpieces, I tell you. Masterpieces.

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