''Hard Boiled Sweets'' is a 2012

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

crime drama film written and directed by David L.G. Hughes. It tells the story of a group of squabbling

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

gangsters. The cast includes two actors ( Paul Freeman and

Ian Hart Ian Davies (born 8 October 1964), better known by his stage name Ian Hart, is an English actor. His most notable roles are Rabbit in the Channel Four drama miniseries '' One Summer'' (1983), Joe O'Reilly in the biopic ''Michael Collins'' (1996 ...

) that had appeared in Hughes' earlier short film ''A Girl and a Gun'' from which this, his first feature, was developed.

Plot

London crime boss Jimmy the Gent travels to

Southend Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

in Essex to collect some monies owed to him by local gangster Shrewd Eddie. There, various assorted gangsters, corrupt police and petty criminals attempt to steal from Jimmy a case containing £1 million in cash.

Main cast

Critical reception

The film was largely negatively received by reviewers. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''s Henry Barnes described it as a glossy hybrid of American noir and British gangster films "with nothing under the wrapper". Tom Seymour of ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' summed it up as "A miserable mess of gangland cliches and narrative tangle". Tom Huddleston of '' Time Out'' also found it clichéd – "more Cockernee crime by numbers" – but also suggested that it had "a fistful of decent throwaway gags and enough plot surprises to just about carry it through the rough patches". ScreenDaily praised its technical aspects including Anders Bundgaard's opening credit sequence and Sara Deane's cinematography, describing it overall as "an intriguing debut".

Box office

The film received a limited release and according to

Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is ...

took only $6,462 in two weeks in cinemas. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 30 April 2012.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hard Boiled Sweets 2012 films British crime drama films 2012 crime drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films