Well-acted and directed, a surprisingly good action flick Plastic has hit the home video market on DVD. The movie offers its own interpretation of a several million dollar diamond heist that actually took place by a group of men in 1997. The original robbery spanned from Manchester, England to Los Angeles, CA and involving the prestigious Bejon Jewelers on Rodeo Drive. This film’s story adds a little comedy with their creative crime caper and that’s a good thing because if not, it would have been just be another heist movie.
The film opens with a group of college students, Sam (Ed Speleers), Fordy (Poulter), Yates (Alfie Allen) and Rafa (Sebastian De Souza), running a scam by duplicating credit cards using a special reader at a gas station. Using the cards to pay off their debt and live the high life, the guys start to branch out in other schemes. Unfortunately they inadvertently scam Marcel (Thomas Kretschmann) a very brutal mobster by stealing money from his accountant during an extortion caper. Confronting the boys with the theft of his money, Marcel gives them an out; replace all the money they took plus interest of $2 million dollars per month.
The students, who have picked up another partner Frankie (Emma Rigby), decide to pull off a mega con to pay off Marcel once and for all. Their mark is the buyer for a high class jewelry store on Miami Beach. The scheme involves impersonating a Prince who wants a special collection of jewels for his bride to be. When the idea starts to run into problems, the gang goes on the run.
Although the film does have a lot of plot holes and a little too much wind in its sails, the movie does entertain. Director Julian Gilbey keeps his film fast paced starting in London then moving the story to Miami Beach and finally finding the gang cornered in London where it all started. The student gang itself changes drastically during the film from the group with a plan, to each making plans of their own. It becomes one failed wacked out job after another putting each of the students in harm’s way.
There are some downsides to the film and include choppy scenes that do not play out well, the characters are not fleshed out to afford them much likeability and the story gets so incredibly inane at times that it becomes laughable instead of funny. But, that said, the production value does make for some good entertainment. The shootouts are realistic, the fighting well choreographed and the finale not too bad.
The most recognizable actors in the film include Ed Speelers who plays Ed in A Lonely Place to Die, Will Poulter who portrays Gally in the recent The Maze Runner, and Alfie Allen appears in John Wick as Iosef Tarasov and as Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones. The actors are becoming idols and each on their way to the big time.
The only real extra is a “Making of” feature with several of the crew and the cast talking about their characters, stunts, filming and off the set comments. It’s especially interesting because they have an interview with one of the criminals that actually participated in the scam that happened in 1997. It’s a lot of fun watching the actors talk about each other and their director during breaks in the filming.
The film has been rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, sexual content/nudity, language throughout and some drug use. While most of the nudity is stylish and sometimes gratuitous, the violence comes on very strong and vicious.
A fun film if you haven’t seen a lot of heist movies.
