Saints should stick to singing
Reviewed by David Vatchev. Honest is a real oddity. Three band members of the All Saints play sisters from the East End who dress up as men to go robbing 'up West'. It's hard not to be entertained by the All Saints' acting debut, but the truth is, you're laughing at the film far more than you're laughing with it.
Set in the swinging 60s, this comedy-thriller takes place in London's two most stereotyped districts; Carnaby Street and the East End. The gun-toting Chase sisters - Gerry (Nicole Appleton), Mandy (Natalie Appleton) and Jo (Melanie Blatt) - divide their time between the two-up, two-down East End gaff which they share with their disabled father (James Cosmo) and their other lives as local small-time robbers.
The sisters are very much out on their own. In a world going 'peace and love' crazy, their violent, thieving attitudes are completely out of place. Even amongst the criminal fraternity they are unusual; challenging the code of conduct of the male-dominated East End underworld.
Things start to go wrong when the East End girls, looking for something new to rob, set their sights on a jewellers. Whilst casing the joint, the eldest of the trio comes across Zero, a counter-culture magazine and falls (literally) for the charms of one of its employees; a good-looking, middle-class American student, Daniel (Peter Facinelli). Under instruction from the magazine editor to avoid getting the police involved, Daniel offers to take Gerry home. With the police already sniffing round her street, however, Gerry decides to hide the stolen gems in Daniel's flat...
Whilst Gerry is busy stealing Daniel's heart, the other two parts to her trio are getting on the wrong side of some gangland boss, so Dan and Gerry have to go and save them. Jolly good.
The implausible storyline is just one of this film's many bad points. The Appleton sisters - particularly Nicole - at least prove to be better actors than the Spice Girls (though I guess that's not saying much). The fault lies with first-time director and co-writer Dave Stewart (aka the bloke in Eurythmics) - who seems to get bit bored halfway through and decides to start experimenting with cinematic devices that simply don't work.
Having failed in the 'arty' stakes he instead resorts to making Honest very much a pop outing. The result is unfortunately a surprisingly weak script. The All Saints don't do too badly as actresses, but they are much better as singers (again that's not saying much). The story just lacks any meaning.
25th May 2000