4.3.2.1

4.3.2.1 , about the lives of four girls over three days, is a cliched film that has been done better before

Director: Noel Clarke,
Mark Davis
Starring: Emma Roberts, Tamsin Egerton, Ophelia Lovibond, Shanika Warren-Markland
**
4.3.2.1 is billed as an urban thriller. It follows the lives of four girls, over the same three days, beginning with a distraught Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond) standing on the edge of Westminster Bridge, clutching a handful of diamonds.

Her three friends look on, desperately urging her to get down. The action then cuts back in time to see them meeting up, before following each of their individual stories, as they are played out in parallel.

This is an ambitious concept, but it is one that has been done before, with far more finesse. This film is just a bit too baggy around the edges for the time shifts in the narrative to really work. As the action veers energetically from scene to scene, it feels chaotic, rather than clever.

The director Noel Clarke was apparently prompted to make this 4.3.2.1, after he was criticised for his unrealistic representation of women in his previous films (Kidulthood, Adulthood).

If this is intended as a tale of female empowerment, then it is a rather flawed one. The film has an overblown, cartoonish feel to it and there is a lot of gratuitous exposed flesh.

The four girls, meanwhile, are simply caricatures: there is a troubled, slightly dark artist, a street-savvy martial arts expert, a sweet but lonely American and a beautiful heiress. For all its “edgy” intentions, 4.3.2.1 has a trashy, teenage drama feel to it and is best avoided.