4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie Review

Diamonds Aren't Always a Girl's Best Friend

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 30, 2012

4.3.2.1 is a gimmicky film, but so was Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which was successful both here and in its native Britain. Although 4.3.2.1 shares several features with Guy Ritchie's "lad" spectacular—the biggest difference being that all its main characters are female—it failed to enthuse either critics or the box office on its U.K. release in 2010, which is probably why it never made it to the arthouse, let alone the muliplex, here in the U.S. Two years later, Universal, the American distributor, quietly released the film on Blu-ray.

How to market this film to an American audience? Only one actress, Emma Roberts, of the four leads playing friends caught up in an international diamond heist is familiar to American viewers, and though Roberts (Scream 4, It's Kind of a Funny Story) may well be a star some day, it would misrepresent the movie to rest the marketing on her shoulders. Writer and co-director Noel Clarke is familiar to Dr. Who fans as Mickey Smith and will be much better known in 2013 after release of the next Star Trek film (in which the nature of his role is still rumored). But his biggest claim to fame is 2006's Kidulthood, which he wrote and starred in, and which was followed by a 2008 sequel, Adulthood, which he also directed. These films put Clarke on the map in the U.K., but they're unknown here.

What about the supporting cast? It takes an unusual project to attract an ensemble of such distinction to a low-budget production for the sheer fun of participating. (Clarke, co-director Mark Davis and some of the cast discuss this in the included documentary.) Kevin Smith brings his characteristic patter to the pivotal role of a courier for an international delivery service. Michelle Ryan, the former Bionic Woman, plays a good samaritan who may have ulterior motives. Mandy Patinkin, currently on Homeland, appears briefly but memorably as a strict music teacher whom one of the leads has to impress at an audition. Parents of the four leads are portrayed by Ben Miller (Primeval), Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon), Alexander Siddig (Star Trek: DS9) and Helen McCrory (doing such a credible American accent that you may not recognize her as the evil Narcissa Malfoy from the Harry Potter films).

And what exactly is this intriguing collection of talent supporting? It's hard to describe without spoiling the whole experience, but read on.

The "4" in the title refers to four twenty-something friends: Jo (Roberts), Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond), Kerrys (Shanika Warren-Markland) and Cassandra (Tamsin Egerton). The "3" refers to the three days over which the story plays out, the "2" to the two cities (London and New York) where events occur, and the "1" . . . well, the title cards say "one chance", but it really comes down to one story composed of four overlapping chapters.

The story begins with its ending: Shannon standing on the railing of a bridge with a handful of diamonds, while her three friends yell at her to "give us what we want" and Kerrys points a gun in her direction. The film then rewinds three days to the women meeting at a café just before Cassandra departs for her flight to New York for a crucial piano audition with Sir Jago Larofsky (Patinkin), one of the world's most eminent music teachers. The film will rewind three more times to this meeting, on each occasion following a different woman as she leaves the encounter and traverses the intervening days. Though their paths often cross, they have separate adventures.

One overarching event ensnares them all. News reports are dominated by a sensational jewel theft in Antwerp, and the stolen diamonds are believed to have entered Britain. As the four women say goodbye outside the café, a pair of local thugs, Dillon (Adam Deacon) and Smoothy (Ashley Thomas), nearly knock them down in flight from the police, who suspect them of drug dealing. Unseen by anyone except the camera's eye, Dillon drops a single diamond in Cassandra's bag.

Up first is Shannon, who returns home to find that her father and mother (Pertwee and Kate Magowan) are splitting. As is often the case in such situations, Shannon blames herself, and it gradually emerges that there are specific reasons why she does so. In fact, her mother slipped a letter into her purse that morning that was intended to relieve Shannon's guilt, but the letter got into Cassandra's bag after an attempted purse-snatching at the café scattered the contents everywhere. Downcast and morose, Shannon spends the next few days seeking solace from each of her friends, all of whom seem too busy to give her any time. Adding insult to injury, when Shannon goes to see Jo at her job in a 24-hour mini-mart, she finds Jo canoodling with Dillon behind the counter—and even though he's kind of a thug, Shannon has a crush on him.

By the time she ends up climbing onto the railing of the bridge, Shannon will have been drugged by a guy in a bar, attacked by a gang in the streets, rescued by the mysterious Kelly (Ryan), and found fourteen of the fifteen stolen Antwerp diamonds in a can of Pringles potato chips. But meanwhile . . .

Cassandra headed to New York with many instructions from her wealthy parents (Miller and Coduri). What they don't know is that the piano audition isn't her only reason for going. Having retained her virginity for what her friends consider an unhealthy length of time, she plans to lose it to an internet correspondent named Brett, with whom she feels a deep connection. If this sounds like a terrible idea, that's because it is. When Brett finally appears at Cassandra's hotel, he's handsome, charming and a scam artist who drugs and robs her. After the initial shock, Cassandra tracks down the offender and takes her revenge, with the help of a neighborhood good samaritan played by singer Eve.

Along the way, Cassandra has discovered Shannon's letter in her purse and sent it back to London with the garrulous courier, Big Larry (Smith), who sat next to her on the flight from London. She also found that stray diamond. But meanwhile . . .

Kerrys, who is the daughter of Brazilian immigrants, projects a tough exterior to hide a secret pain because she believes her father (Siddig) is ashamed of her and prefers her brother, Manuel (Gregg Chillin). If the father knew that Manuel was currently hiding the Antwerp diamonds for a fee, he'd certainly be less than proud. After a typical family argument, Kerrys storms out of the house and disappears for some R&R with her girlfriend, Jas (Susannah Fielding). Unbeknownst to Cassandra, Kerrys "borrowed" her keys before she left for New York, and Kerrys and Nas head for the condo they know will be deserted. But Manuel shows up after a day, dispatched by the family to try to make peace. The act doesn't last long, and at the first opportunity, Manuel locks Kerrys and Nas into the well-appointed "panic room" Cassandra's rich daddy built to protect his little girl. Then Manuel proceeds to invite all his friends over for a party. It's almost a day before Kerrys and Jas can raise Cassandra on the phone and get the escape code (look at the film's title and guess what it is). Then Kerrys shows up at Manuel's birthday party to get even in her own unique way. And finally . . .

Jo's mother (McCrory), an American, married a Brit with his own daughter, Gwen (Linzey Crocker). Jo and Gwen both work shifts at a local 24-hour mini-mart, and the family needs every penny now that the dad (Alan McKenna), a construction worker, is laid up with a broken leg. Currently, though, Gwen has a prospective boyfriend showering her with attention; so Jo is taking her assignments. This puts her on an unaccustomed night shift, where she encounters a dictatorial manager who calls himself "Tee" (director Clarke). It turns out that Tee is playing some sort of middleman for the stolen diamonds, a role which results in double-crosses, a robbery and a strange sort of Mexican standoff. Eventually we get back to the scene with all four women on the bridge, except that everything looks different now that we've seen what happened in the intervening three days.

The events of 4.3.2.1 are preposterous, but so what? Lots of films depict events that seem impossible and characters who are outsize beyond the point of caricature. If the script is coherent, the actors treat their characters seriously—or, in acting parlance, play the truth of the scenes—and the director(s) have an interesting visual sense, the result can be superior entertainment. That's what it is here.

4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

4.3.2.1 is the first feature film shot by cinematographer Franco Pezzino, who captured on film and completed post-production on a digital intermediate. In keeping with the fractured narrative and elaborately manipulated timeline, the film's look is heavily stylized and colors have all been intensified. It wouldn't be accurate to say that the film looks like a music video, but everything is brighter and more vivid than everyday life. The image on Universal's 1080p, VC-1-encoded Blu-ray is fine-grained and nicely detailed, but there is so much motion in virtually every frame that it's difficult to reflect the full range of image detail in screencaps alone. Suffice it to say that the fine details of the wide array of environments and costumes—from the upscale café to the standardized mini-mart, from the lavish decor of Cassandra's home to the threadbare English chill of Shannon's to the warm middle class environs of Kerrys' family—are all nicely captured in the frame, even if you can only manage a fleeting glance as the action rolls by. In the occasional dark scene (usually outdoors at night), the black levels are sufficiently well delineated to provide good shadow detail. The colors are varied, with richly saturated hues predominating.

Extras are few and audio options are limited (although the space is there); so Universal's use of a BD-50 has eliminated any issue of compression artifacts. Since the Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files, issues of high frequency filtering and artificial sharpening do not arise.

4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The audio mix on 4.3.2.1's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track makes active use of the entire surround array, but not in the usual fashion, because it never attempts to create a realistic sonic environment, not even in club scenes, which would seem ideal candidates for such efforts. The sound department has worked closely with composers Adam Lewis and Barnaby Robson to create a mix that blurs the difference between score and effects. The most obvious example is in the "rewind" sequences, which use electronic instruments to create the sensation of time reversing. In club scenes, the dancers are not moving in time to "source" music; they're hearing the same soundtrack that we, the viewers, hear, which is clean, clear and free of distortion and overload. This is an inventive and enjoyable soundtrack, unless of course you're allergic to the brand of techno-pop music that dominates the mix.

Dialogue is always clear, although anyone who has trouble with English accents may struggle. In that case, there are subtitles.

4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of 4.3.2.1 (SD; 1.78:1; 22:19): An informative making-of that includes interviews with all the lead players and a number of the supporting actors. Ophelia Lovibond sums up the script's appeal right at the outset: "You never get these films with four leads, and it's not all about nail varnish and new shoes and everything." Clark and Davis discuss their working methods as co-directors, and Clark describes how he attracted name-brand talent.



• Additional Trailers: On startup the disc plays trailers (in 1080p) for Columbus Circle and Rosewood Lane. These can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.



• MyScenes

4.3.2.1. Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are those who find multi-stranded narratives inherently precious and distracting, and then there are those (like me) who enjoy following the various strands and putting together the puzzle until the overall picture emerges. If you belong to the former group, by all means skip 4.3.2.1. If you're one of the latter, then the film is well worth your time, as long as you don't expect anything too serious. It's essentially a caper story, with four unwitting heroines, all of them very contemporary. The Blu-ray is technically superior, though light on extras. Recommended.