Plastic **½ (2014, Ed Speleers, Will Poulter, Alfie Allen, Emma Rigby, Thomas Kretschmann, Sebastian De Souza) – Movie Review

Ed Speleers and Will Poulter star as two arrogant little young London conmen, Sam and Fordy, who are very pleased with themselves as they run a credit card fraud scheme. Fortunately, life is going to teach them a lesson.

For, alas, the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain*, as the poet said, and the duo steal from the wrong man and are life threatened by a sadistic gangster.

They need to raise £5million to clear their debt to him PDQ, and that means they have to fly off to Miami to target Florida’s big spenders and their credit cards. But, when things going wrong (sorry, gang agley) there, it’s back to London to try to pull off one last daring diamond heist.

This real-life heist movie stretches the imagination and patience a lot of the time. It has its plus points, an interesting tale to tell and the good cast for starters. It doesn’t really make the most of either assets, but still it entertains in its slightly slack and lazy way most of the time. It’s a shame that Speleers and Poulter aren’t better used because they’ve certainly got the stuff.

Plastic is certainly good enough to make you want to know more about the little-known real-life crime it’s based on, as it truly is quite a story. The film plays like an early, un-refined draft of an Ocean’s Eleven script before they did the re-writes, and the story is just as far-fetched. It would be just as surprising if it turned out the Ocean’s Eleven/12/13 stories were actually true.

Julian Gilbey co-writes (with Will Gilbey) and directs with a commendable lot of dedication and commitment, but can’t manage any charm or sparkle.

* (translation for non-Scots): Things often go wrong even though you have carefully planned what you are going to do – Robert Burns.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

In 2014 Will Poulter won the Bafta Rising Star Award.