Hard Boiled Sweets

A great ensemble film with a strong cast and a punchy storyline. I really liked this film a lot. In the same vein as some brilliant modern British gangster classics, but freshened up - and really rich visually.

This is slick and stylish throughout with some gorgeous camera work and nice editing.

It's got a strong British theme running throughout, taking in some classic London / seaside town locations - seedy - but still with a faded charm!

The overall story follows a number of different characters, all rather shady and looking for shortcuts to improve their lot in life - at other people's expense. Everyone gets caught up in a roller-coaster of twists and turns. There is a nicely paced momentum to the story - the plot is just complicated enough to keep it gripping to the end, but not so much that you have to work hard to follow it.

The hard boiled sweets reference carries through the film and makes short work of introducing each new entrant and giving the audience a flavour of their personality by likening them to a different sweet. The characters are all very distinct and quirky and when they get together the combinations are variously funny, melancholic and dangerous.

Highly recommended

The movie is based on a short story and that is (my guess) why and how the filmmaker got the money to do the movie. The short movie is on the DVD (I'd think every nation must have it, but check before you buy/rent it of course) and you can watch it afterwards to see the differences. It's not that long and if you liked at least the idea you can judge for yourself what you think of it.

Of course the short movie is expanded a lot and ends on a different note too. The acting is decent enough for a movie like this and it might surprise you from times to times. Still there are quite a few things that are wrong. You might care about them or not (it tries too hard to be cool, story flaws and filmmaking flaws), but let's see where this filmmaker is going.

Much better than it's IMDB rating suggests. I enjoyed this whilst tolerating its limitations. Didn't really expect the story to unfold in the way it did.

In this lame-titled movie we are introduced for 30 minutes to the characters who are assigned some type of candy based on their personalities. There's the convict who's just released from jail. He doesn't walk more than a few steps outside when he's picked up by a corrupt cop who blackmails him into doing a job. The cop is pressured by the wife to have a child but they are unable and getting medical treatment for it.

The cop and ex-con go to a beach town and scout. The town is owned by some mobster who gets a take from everything that happens there. Every so often he has a briefcase with 250000 with him. There's the area's pimp and his newest employee, a young innocent girl. At home, the mobster has a gorgeous young wife, a former prostitute given to him by the pimp. She wishes nothing more for the old man to die. And she's involved with the mobster's driver. Then there's the boss. He's on his way to the pick up his part of the money from the mobster. He's being chauffeured around by a black kid, whom he teases and mocks and makes believe that his boss is sleeping with his girl.

The cop wants the ex-con to get close to the mobster to steal the briefcase with the money. Around the same time, the mobster's wife wants his driver to help her steal the briefcase when the boss comes, once the total sum of money is there, way more than 250k. The pimp also want the young girl to get close to the boss and steal the case.

When most of these people go back to the mobster's house after partying, the story unravels and we'll find out who gets to keep the money and who doesn't make it.

Hard Boiled Sweets is an enjoyable movie. The whole candy business is a waste of time though and adds nothing to the story. All the characters are unsavory and nasty and some of the dialogue is unnecessarily crude and for all the nastiness there isn't even any nudity. The way the resolution develops is quite surprising though. And while the ending isn't in the least satisfactory but somewhat predictable it still didn't ruin the movie for me. It is a different and interesting movie to watch.

The film was slow and dull. Unoriginal characters and a clichéd British hard-men nutter story. No where near the class and wit of Guy Ritchie's Masterpieces which some people seem to have the audacity to compare this to. I just couldn't follow it, felt bored out of my mind within 5 minutes. I can't believe it's received any of the decent reviews which it has; I'm guessing they're family and friends of those who were involved in the making of this diabolical film.

I would have hoped if they were ambitious enough to use the 5D Mark II to shoot this, they would have had the patience and desire to ensure the story was decent with imaginative characters and an engaging, colourful plot; this is where the film fell flat on it's face for me.