Sugar

Having watched Around the World with 30 Kilograms, a documentary covering the same story which is fictionalized in Sugar, I decided to watch this film despite the low ratings. The story is quite entertaining, but I think that the documentary version might be closer to the truth, although even that was something of an apologia for one of the two women (the French Canadian). Both depictions make the two women out to be more innocent than they probably were. The judge must have agreed since they both served several years (6 or 7?) in an Australian prison. But at least they enjoyed their cruise before their captivity! I would be interested to know whether there was a police informant in the real life story, as there was in this fictional version. Probably not, I suppose, although it is hard to believe that so little effort was made to insulate the scent of cocaine from what would in all likelihood be drug-sniffing canines at the border. Would professionals be so stupid? I don't think so.

This film is a complete turkey but entertaining enough to make it a must watch.

• the plot. This is "inspired by true events" but unfortunately the entire film is based on made up details of implausible situations and characters with enough plot holes to shake a stick at. I can't believe that somebody can claim to be a professional and write this script.

• the filming locations. If you are a cruise fan then this film is not for you. Even though most of the action is based on a cruise ship - the majority of the film was not filmed on a ship! All of the scenes in the cruise suite where actually filmed in a hotel room. The bars were filmed in bars at sea.

• The lack of attention to detail is staggering. This is an around the world 3 month cruise that costed probably $50k but every single guest on board is in their 20s! Not one elderly person is on board. The nightclub also has bottle service with sparklers. Firstly, there is no bottle service on a ship and secondly flames are not allowed on ships at sea!

To top it all off - one of the stars of the movie is the Director's daughter, talk about nepotism. Although to be fair - she is actually pretty good in this movie, if that's possible.

So there you have it - it's so bad that it's good.

This film is a prime example of shabby, lazy and incompetent filmmaking. Co-writer and director Vic Sarin ruined what could've easily been a decent viewing experience, with his amateur-hour directing, choppy editing, and a screenplay riddled with plot holes and technical issues. Scenes came out of nowhere and/or ended abruptly with zero rhyme or reason. It's like they were randomly taped together after passing through a shredder. There was so much information missing in many scenes, while many others were questionable as to why they were even filmed. This felt like a really terrible made-for-TV Lifetime movie. The 101 min runtime wasn't used effectively. Even with the fairly decent pacing, it still felt long and dragged out with the incohesive scenes and lack of proper narrative flow. Sarin also failed to direct his cast properly, as most seemed like it was their first acting job. The only convincing character was Chloe played by Katherine McNamara. It's a huge missed opportunity, because the story sure has appeal, but too bad the execution failed the story. It's a very generous 5/10 from me, mostly for the cast who I'm sure tried their best with what they had to work with, and the decent scenic views at the various ports.

I'm being factitious if it sounds like I an objecting to the language used in the film. This is obviously a made-for-TV movie, and not a feature film. IMDB says the Countries of Origin are Canada and Mexico, but the languages are English and German. Weird. IMDB also says it was filmed in Canada. I can only guess TV standards are different in Canada, as there is extensive use of foul language in the movie. Those words are skipped in the LMN version of the movie, both in the spoken word and the subtitles. But they are obvious in the context of the dialogue and in lip-reading the characters' words. I can't say for sure they would be allowed on Canadian TV, and if not, I wonder if a theatrical release was considered for the movie. I hope not; it would have been a complete flop.

The ending, which others have mentioned here, seemed incomplete, as if final scenes were missing to explain what happened, why, and what happened to the real bad guys. . But then, that was true throughout the film. Many subplots were left unanswered, and much of the action was haphazard and did not flow well, as if it were edited poorly. A better ending would have made the film somewhat bearable. As it was, if was bad even by Lifetime standards, even though it wasn't a Lifetime-produced movie. I know Razzies aren't awarded to TV movies, but if there were a category for them, this would have been a winner (so to speak).

No pun intended - it is quite funny that the main character is played by Kate McNamara, who is quite active on her social media(s). Not to the degree the character is on ... also hopefully with lesser problems, but you'll understand once you watch the movie.

Also this seems to be based on a true story ... at least that is what I got from the end credits. Not sure if it would have been worse if I had known where this would end ... or not. But I felt it worked quite alright by not knowing what is going to happen. On the other hand and maybe because it is based on a true story, it feels quite restricted ... well I've seen worse movies, but also a lot better. If you do not watch many movies or are not a fan of one of the actors at least ... maybe you can and should skip this ...