4.3.2.1

Four girlfriends, each in their own troubles over head, are involved in the theft of diamonds, which they are not even aware of. Movie tells four separate stories, each being close up for one of the girls. Then stories begin to intertwine and merge into a common finale. Interesting, but in every way mediocre. I'm giving one additional point because this is Noel's second directing and movie has low budget for today's standards. My secret crush in Emma Roberts did not affect my rating, I promise.

7/10

Four young female friends in England (Ophelia Lovibond, Shanika Warren- Markland, Emma Roberts, Tamsin Egerton) have individual adventures, all of which end up connected to a huge diamond heist.

Cassandra (Egerton), from a wealthy family, travels to New York City for an audition with an important piano teacher and also to meet her Internet boyfriend. Jo (Roberts), to help her family, has to work in a 7-11 type store at night. Kerrys (Warren-Markland) is a lesbian rebelling against her family, particularly her half-brother; and Shannon (Lovibond) is desperately unhappy, feels she has no one to talk to, abandoned by her mother, and contemplating suicide.

Using the Pulp Fiction-Jackie Brown format, we see how each woman becomes involved with one another over three nights and what leads them to their involvement in a diamond heist, which during the film is being broadcast on TV in many scenes.

I thought this was well done and appeals to a young crowd. The friends are beautiful and going through passages like losing virginity, trying to get accepted in an important school, parents breaking up, blended families, driving tests and the like.

When Cassandra, a stunning blond, goes to New York for her audition, at one point she is walking around wearing a long sweater. That's it, a long sweater and nothing on her long, gorgeous legs. No woman walks around New York City like that. I don't mean to imply that you're "asking for it" - no - but for most women, the harassment, the men following you, and the whistling can be scary and/or annoying and not worth it, especially for someone new to the city.

There are very funny as well as dramatic sections; this winds up as an entertaining film, a little longer than it needed to be, but fun.

Noel Clarke showed a lot of promise as a independent British film maker with the excellent Adulthood, the second part of Kidulthood of which he also wrote. Both films had an honest and frightening portrayal of youth culture today. What made these films stand out was the depth of the characters he created not seen in others films trying to portray the same subject of youth gone wrong, the audience actually cared about where these people's lives would lead to. Clarke is a film maker with something bold to say and has his own style with plenty of potential to be one of uk's top film makers. Unfortunately his latest film 4.3.2.1 doesn't confirm this.

4.3.2.1 is a film that promises a lot with poster tagline says 4 girls, 3 days, 2 cities, 1 chance, its an exciting set up. 4 friends stories and lives told separately all of which become linked through a diamond heist with some rough characters in pursuit. This type of story telling has worked very well for Tarantino's classic Pulp Fiction and Doug Limans "Go!". In fact this film has more in common with "Go!" in terms of plot. You only have to see both these films to know that when done right this type of story telling can be exciting, fresh and damn good fun but Clarke just doesn't seem to have a grip of the story and where its going, it could have done with a better edit, each of the girls stories are overlong and drawn out where they could have been fast, sharp and snappy with only Shannon's story (the first to be shown) showing excitement and gripping an audience, such a shame as this was a promising start. The New York sequence felt poorly executed and unexplained, a poor attempt at a cross over potential with cameo's from Kevin Smith (which was more irritating then funny) and Eve (quite pointless).

The performances from the four leads do save the film from being a total failure, particularly from Ophelia Lovibond and Emma Roberts. Clarke clearly shows his gift for writing strong and rich characters. Some people have cried stereotype's for the four leads, with this i disagree in fact i feel all four of them were girls you could route for and were the strongest aspect of the film The sad part is i really wanted to love this film, i had high expectations and hoped it could be a winning cross over for Clarke. This film overall failed to give me the same excitement i had for his previous films. The plot and pacing felt uneven, the whole film was half an hour too long and more importantly not fun at all making 4.3.2.1 feel like a wasted opportunity to wider Clarke's audiences. I believe the best is yet to come from the award winning film maker but this is not the best example of his talent only showing a small amount of his potential. Maybe go back to basics next time!

I had high hopes for this film. British films tend to have depth to them and I like Noel Clarke. However, this was almost embarrassing to watch. The writing is on par with those terrible Olsen movies and the plot isn't much better. The film seemingly was just written to string together various scenes of the girls in their underwear, sex scenes and lesbian kissing. The girls are beautiful and the cinematography is cool but the actual film is crap. Noel Clarke is fun to watch as an actor, but his writing leaves a lot to be desired. It really is like something the Disney channel would write just littered with swear words. Its a shame. I really did want to like this film but I was left so disappointed.

Noel Clarke's 4.3.2.1 is well… okay.

The story is simple: 4 friends find some stolen gems and the thieves want them back.

The movie is split into four separate time lines one for each girl which Clarke uses to explore their lives, relationships and personalities over 3 days while they work out how to deal with being thrust into this situation.

The four leads, Emma Roberts, Tamsin Egerton, Shanika Warren-Marland, and Ophelia Lovibond give up great performances and Michelle Ryan, clearly relishes her role as chief baddie gives us a really awful performance. Clarke fans will be disappointed to learn that he only appears for few scenes. Cameos from Mandy Patinkin, Nick Briggs, Ben Stiller, Kevin Smith and Camille Coduri.

The direction is okay and the action has the usual music track to make it all look like things are moving, the script contains a couple of crap lines but in general it's an okay movie. And that is that. 5 out of 10.