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

Hard Boiled Sweets rises above many other British gangland thrillers by sheer weight of the unexpected. It's filmed really well, and is well cast. Nor does it outstay it's welcome at around 80 minutes or so. It moves pretty quick, so much so, that when the surprises start to kick in, it's a very easy ride to the finish. Hard Boiled Sweets deserves to be on any recent list of competent British crime-land dramas.

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.

"Hard Boiled Sweets" is yet another one of those indie crime thrillers that go for a Tarantino vibe and fail miserably. It bathes in a faux- cool atmosphere, I never thought you could squeeze so many embarrassing attempts at clever one-liners into just one movie. Every line needs to be a Mark Twain quote, because what else would you do with your dialogues? Explore your characters, shed some light on their motivations? That seems difficult, let's skip that part. It's kind of a shame really, because this movie does have a very crafty plot. There are several twists you genuinely do not see coming, and usually that's good enough for me to like a movie. But the clever plot is just drowned out with one groan-inducing line after the other, so this is a tough movie to rate. I don't think I've ever been this irritated by a movie I enjoyed so much. Make of that what you will.

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.