4.3.2.1

Very much not the film I expected it to be, 4.3.2.1 is a story of 4 girls and one very strange weekend in their lives. Each girl goes her separate way on Friday evening, each girl gets into a wacky adventure, somehow gets connected with an international diamond theft and then ends up back with her pals on Sunday evening in a Mexican standoff. The story of the film is told four times, once from the view point of each of the girls. Bit by bit the story is built up until we see the whole picture.

The trailer made 4.3.2.1 seem like a copy of 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' - except with lots more girls in their pants. The interviews with writer Noel Clarke billed it as an antidote to the much-panned 'Sex and the City' sequel - it's 4 girls having a crazy time! In the end I thought it was closer to the later than the former, but although the premise should be interesting I felt fairly let down. When a story is told non-linearly you kind of expect that the point is to generate a big reveal which if revealed in chronological order would spoil the mystery. That doesn't really happen in 4.3.2.1. Only the stories of the first and the final girls actually seem connected to the diamond heist, everything in between is filler (and at times off-putting misandric filler).

In fact, thinking back over the plot there is very little connection between what the girls get up to and the diamond heist. Their interaction with it is brief and fleeting, their interactions with each other are electronically facilitated and not entirely character-building. Therefore although I came out of the cinema thinking "that was ok", thinking back I'm not really sure what was "ok" about it - what with its loose plot and dislikeable characters (apart from Shannon - why is she friends with the others? They have nothing in common). Also there seemed to be a bit of a problem with the acting, Shanika Warren-Markland (Kerys) was a little wooden and Emma Roberts (Joanne) seemed to be constantly channelling Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Noel Clarke was solid as ever in his acting role, and once again he has made a film that is set in and amongst the less desirable parts of London - for that he should be praised. I am glad I watched 4.3.2.1, but it really wasn't the film I had been expecting, and I was not exactly pleasantly surprised.