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Plastic is where Hustle meets Hollyoaks.
Sam (Ed Speleers), Fordy (We’re The Millers‘ Will Poulter), Yatesey (Game of Thrones‘ Alfie Allen) and Rafa (Sebastian De Souza) are scamming customers whether setting them up with a hooker, or conning them via chip & pin machines, cue the title’s reference to cloned credit cards.
Before too long, they fall in a bad crowd with a big boss Marcel (Stalingrad 3D‘s Thomas Kretschmann, who also appeared in the 1994 film of the same name, albeit without any 3D element), who hires Polish heavies (“First my cleaners, now even my heavies are Polish. Half the price, twice the nuisance.”), and they end up owing £2m in order to get him off their back. They’ll need all the ‘plastic’ they can muster, so need the assistance of Frankie (Emma Rigby), as she works in a call centre for a credit card company.
Both Sam and Yatesy have the hots for Frankie, so there’s going to be a blow-up there, despite the fact that the latter just wants to get in a girl’s pants, and concludes, following a brief chat with her at a bar, that she is a “five date shag”, meaning he’s not going to get any action for a while. Seeing how pug-faced Allen is somehow such a hit with the ladies, why he only focuses on the one goes unexplained.
Or maybe because, for a fair amount of the film, Emma Rigby appears in revealing outfits, usually a bikini (see below).
Plastic starts off with some great momentum early on, but things slow down and get a bit predictable in the final act, while all the time Will Poulter looks confused, and I thought the seascape outside the Miami apartment was faked in a studio, but director Julian Gilbey confirms that it wasn’t. It looked that way to me from the window frames where they meet the glass, but I guess they just needed a bit of a clean. Either way, the film still makes for a reasonable 90-odd minutes before the end credits begin, though, so is worth a watch.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high definition and for a standard modern film, it has no issues at all, looking best when they’re out and about in Miami.
The sound is in DTS HD 5.1 – for those with the requisite equipment, although I only have the usual complement of speakers and, aside from the aforementioned dialogue issues at times, again it’s the special effects scenes when your speakers will get the most out of it.
The extras are as follows
- Making Plastic (33:36): Not in HD, unlike most Blu-ray extras these days, and you get clips of the film mixed in with chat from key cast and crew members.
Writer/producer Chris Howard talks about how it was based on a true story which happened in Manchester, orchestrated by Saqib Mumtaz who also discusses it here. Between them all, we hear how it was updated to the current day, and making the protagonists students, so they’re coming out of University to a Britain ruined by bankers.
It’s amusing when the cast start pretending to slag each other off to camera rather than blow smoke up each other’s arse, which is what you normally expect from a ‘making of’.
There’s also no subtitles to this extra.
- Theatrical Trailer (1:39): In 2.35:1. Unlike the making-of, this *IS* in HD.
The menu mixes clips from the film with a piece of the incidental music. The chaptering is a bog-standard 12 – never enough as I work on the rule of thumb of one every five minutes. Subtitles are in English only.
Plastic is available now on Blu-ray and DVD, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
6 10 8 2 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 102 minutes
Studio: Paramount Home Video
Cat.no.: UK139048BDR0
Year: 2014
Released: September 8th 2014
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 2.35:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Julian Gilbey
Producers: Alessandro Forte, Chris Howard, Lord Kirkham, Frank Mannion, Terry Stone and Daniel Toland
Screenplay: Julian Gilbey, Will Gilbey and Chris Howard
Music: Chad Hobson
Cast :
Sam: Ed Speleers
Fordy: Will Poulter
Yatesey: Alfie Allen
Rafa: Sebastian De Souza
Frankie: Emma Rigby
Marcel: Thomas Kretschmann
Steve Dawson: Graham McTavish
Tariq: Mem Ferda
Kasper: Michael Bisping
Beth: Malese Jow
DCI Metcalfe: Kate Magowan
Sarah: Amelle Berrabah
Shah: Shane Zaza
Dave: Matt Barber
Ama Dablam Receptionist: Jordana DePaula
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.