Scam artists Sam (Ed Speleers) and Fordy (Will Poulter) have been stealing money through credit card schemes for a while now. However, one day they steal from local kingpin Tariq and he becomes aware of the theft and drags the boys in for a chat. Consigned to paying the money back they fly to Miami, with some friends in tow, to pull off a couple of high profile scams. But will they manage it before Tariq has run out of patience with them?
Shouting aloud from the DVD cover and on the trailer “Inspired by an unbelievable true story” is always a misnomer these days. Plastic sure does play up to the magic of cool kids running scams and making it all seem like a glorious lifestyle, even after being threatened with death they still have an upbeat attitude about all these wrongs they are committing.
With echoes of Ocean’s Eleven coursing through the films veins is wants to be the quick witty, sarcastic playboy of con-job films. Yet what we watched was nothing more than a late night episode of Hollyoaks spun out into ninety plus minutes of mellow drama that is disengaging and vastly ill managed. It’s more about how the main cast look rather than them actual creating a sterling piece of film work, it’s all eye candy. More for the ladies with the lads getting shirts off, but the blokes also are treated to sole female parading round in a skimpy bikini for no reason. All of it smacks of the lads culture from the 90’s throughout.
By the time the story decides that the crew should head to Miami it starts to fall apart. Once returned to British soil the whole South East America jaunt seems like a holiday to top up the tan and cause a bit of mischief. The whole scam job in Miami is so simplistic that anybody with an ounce of intelligence would see straight through it all. We sat their screaming at the screen when obvious cons were being overlooked.
It’s a hugely impressive cast of great, young British actors that we were hopeful at least they would prove watchable, regards of such a poor script, sadly this was not to be. It’s tough to care for any of them involved. A real shame as these guys could, and should, have been brilliant playing off each other like a younger Danny Ocean and his gang. We would still love to see these guys back together, but in something a bit tougher.
Plastic is a synthetic substance that is tough, but put it under some heat and it quickly starts to melt away – much like this movie.
