Honest

UK/France 2000

Reviewed by Andy Richards

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

London, 1969. East End girl Gerry Chase and her sisters Mandy and Jo commit a masked robbery, disguised as men. Gerry cases a jewellery store on Carnaby Street by pretending to look for work at Zero, a radical magazine edited by aristocrat Andrew Pryce-Stevens whose offices are adjacent to the store. She catches the eye of Daniel, an American student trying his hand at journalism. Meanwhile, mob boss Duggie is trying to establish the identity of the thieves. Dressed as men, the sisters rob the jewellers; the last to make her getaway, Gerry is discovered in the Zero office by Daniel who is working late. Daniel unmasks Gerry and puts her up for the night in his flat.

The following day Andrew arrives and offers Gerry and Daniel some fairy cakes spiked with hallucinogens. Having unwittingly eaten these drugs, Gerry gets high, loses the gems and sleeps with Daniel. Mandy and Jo rob a West End club; the heist goes awry and Mandy accidentally shoots Jo in the leg.

Meanwhile, Duggie has worked out that the sisters are behind the robberies and demands the gems. Gerry's father tells her that Duggie was responsible for her mother's death and testifies to the police against him. Duggie is arrested. Daniel discovers that Andrew has a stash of drug money hidden in an artwork; the girls hold up the art gallery where the piece is on display and steal the cash. They flee to France, pursued by Andrew's drug dealer who has a claim on the stolen cash. After subduing their pursuer, Daniel and Gerry drive off together.

Review

With the Austin Powers films still fresh in the public consciousness, Honest's first-time director and co-writer David Stewart's venture into 60s swinging London seems particularly ill-advised. Along with writing partners Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Stewart has melded his personal memories of the era with staple elements from the caper and kitchen-sink genres. The distinctly uncomfortable results leave you wondering just how seriously Honest takes itself. It may be that the stilted acting and wretched dialogue are somehow intentional - a parody of a quaint strain of British cinema, missing only a Robin Askwith cameo. But if, as Stewart's quotes to the press would seem to indicate, Honest is meant to be a realistic portrayal of 60s London, then audiences are faced with one of the most laughably inept films of recent memory.

Starring as the Chase sisters, Nicole and Natalie Appleton and Melanie Blatt (best known as members of the British pop group All Saints) set themselves a more formidable challenge than their girl-band forerunners the Spice Girls, whose Spice World was canny enough to limit itself to a playful dissection of the performers' public personae. In contrast, the All Saints' acting inexperience leads to some excruciating moments as they struggle with conventionally dramatic roles. No doubt the band's young fans would make a more charitable appraisal - if only Honest's adult content hadn't placed it beyond their legal reach.

While the publicised nudity and drug-taking will help the band define themselves against their squeaky-clean peers, Honest takes a conservative, even prudish, stance on sex. There are a number of repellent promiscuous characters, including Jonathan Cake's decadent aristocrat Andrew and a lesbian hippie whom Chase sister Gerry treats with disgust. Gerry's hesitant attitude towards Daniel, meanwhile, culminates in a kitsch soft-focus riverside love scene. More troubling is a discernible vein of misogyny, notably in the use and abuse of the 'artwork' in which Andrew's drug money is hidden (a female mannequin, looking like a reject from A Clockwork Orange). Not only does this mannequin have a secret compartment between its legs which Andrew and Daniel both rummage in, it ends up being hurled through a window and, in a moment relished in close-up, run over by several cars. The subplot involving the domestic abuse endured by the Chases' female neighbour seems similarly gratuitous, as does sister Mandy's lascivious offers of sexual favours.

Honest would be easier to forgive had it been breezier and more knowing. It may be that its sporadic moments of unintentional hilarity spawn a cult following. Were the film to be remarketed along the lines of Showgirls, Honest might even find its true home among the late-night crowd, who could give such lines as "I want to tell you about the night your mum died... It wasn't no gas explosion, Gerry" the treatment they so richly deserve.

Credits

Director
David A. Stewart
Producers
Eileen Gregory
Michael Peyser
Screenplay
David A. Stewart
Dick Clement
Ian La Frenais
Karen Street
Director of Photography
David Johnson
Editor
David Martin
Production Designer
Michael Pickwoad
Music
David A. Stewart
©Honest Productions Limited
Production Companies
Pathé Entertainment presents a Seven Dials Films production in association
with Pandora
Developed with the support of the European Script Fund
Executive Producer
Keith Northrop
Co-executive Producers
Dick Clement
Ian La Frenais
Line Producer
Paul Sarony
Associate Producer
Tim Palmer
Production Manager
Kora McNulty
Location Manager
David Broder
Assistant Directors
Simon Hinkly
Toby Hosking
Rebecca Symons
2nd Unit:
Anthony Wilcox
Mark Gutteridge
Script Supervisor
Elaine Matthews
2nd Unit Continuity
Eleanor Wright
Casting
Director:
Karen Lindsay-Stewart
US Director:
Randi Hiller
ADR Voices:
Brendan Donnison
Lyps Inc
2nd Unit Director of Photography
Howard Smith
2nd Unit Camera Operators
Tony Jackson
Aerial:
Simon Werry
Special Effects Supervisor
Tom Harris
Art Director
Henry Harris
Storyboard Artist
Douglas Ingram
Costume Designer
Mary-Jane Reyner
Wardrobe Mistress
Nicole Young
2nd Unit Wardrobe
Suzi Stokes
Jo Wright
Rachel Turner
Sandra Milman
Martin Milman
Chief Make-up/Hair Designer
Pam Haddock
Make-up Artist
Alison Davies
2nd Unit Make-up
Jacqui Hodgson
Christoff Roche-Gordon
Jane Tyler
Sue Black
Michelle Davidson-Bell
Body Painter/Prosthetics
Geoff Portass
Hairdresser
Paula Price
Title Design
Richard Morrison
Fig Productions
Title/Opticals/End Credits
General Screen Enterprises
Opticals
Cinesite
Music Performed by
London Metropolitan Orchestra
The Score Band
Vocal/Guitar/Bass/
Drums:
Bootsy Collins
Guitar:
David A. Stewart
Drums/Programming:
Steve McLaughlin
Keyboards:
Teese Gohl
Music Orchestrations/
Conductor
Teese Gohl
Music Producers
Teese Gohl
Steve McLaughlin
Music Recordist/Mixer
Steve McLaughlin
Motown Music Consultant
Harry Weinger
Soundtrack
"Rainy DayWomen", "Love Minus Zero", "4th Time Around", "One of Us Must Know" - Bob Dylan; "You're All I Need to Get By", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" - Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell; "See Saw" - Don Covay; "Reflections", "Stop! In the Name of Love" - Beverley Skeete, Claudia Fontaine, Faye Simpson; "Turn into Earth" - Al Stewart; "Tracks of My Tears" - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles; "Mr Know It All", "Little Miss Understood" - The Sires; "Ain't No Stopping" - Bootsy Collins, Steve Lewinson, Pete Lewinson; "Take a Stroll thru Your Mind" - The Temptations; "Pie Jesu" from Faure's "Requiem" - Chamber Philharmonic of Bohemia Puerl Guadentes; "Itchycoo Park" - Small Faces; "Suddenly" - Billy Ternent &His Orchestra; "J'aime les filles" - Jacques Dutronc; "You're All I Need to Get By" - Natalie Appleton, Bootsy Collins
Choreography
Caroline Pope
Sound Recordist
Alistair Crocker
Sound Mixers
Mike Prestwood-Smith
2nd Unit:
Jeff Hawkins
Geoff Tookey
Alistair Widgery
Supervising Sound Editor
Nigel Mills
Dialogue Editors
Gillian Dodders
Mark Heslop
ADR
Artists:
Daniel Flynn
Daniel Marinker
DeNica Fairman
Sharon Gavin
Julia Brams
Mixers:
Ted Swanscott
Terry Isted
Editor:
Gillian Dodders
Foley
Artists:
Stan Fiferman
Ruth Sullivan
Mixer:
Kevin Tayler
Editor:
Ben Barker
Stunt Co-ordinators
Nicholas Powell
Motorbike Sequence:
Lex Milloy
Armourers
Gregg Pearson
Steve Wilkerson
Alan Long
Perdix Firearms
2nd Unit Helicopter Pilot
Paul Moran
Cast
Nicole Appleton
Gerry Chase
Peter Facinelli
Daniel Wheaton
Natalie Appleton
Mandy Chase
Melanie Blatt
Jo Chase
James Cosmo
Tommy Chase
Jonathan Cake
Andrew Pryce-Stevens
Rick Warden
Baz
Annette Badland
Rose
Sean Gilder
The Hawk
Corin Redgrave
Duggie Ord
Paul Rider
Mo
Sam Kelly
Uncle Sid Gallin
Matt Bardock
Cedric
Tony Maudsley
Chopper
Derek Deadman
night watchman
Graham Fletcher-Cook
market trader
Vinny Reed
stills photographer
Renata Habelinková
Karina Iszatt
body painted girls
Willie Ross
Woodbine
Lynn Ferguson
Loretta
Bobby Bluebell
Terry the Tripps
Declan Conlon
Eddie
John Pearson
mechanic
Jayne Ashbourne
Nadja
Helen Slaymaker
Marianne
Ferdy Roberts
Jake
The Sires
1st band on stage at Tripps Festival
Deepak Chopra
poetry reader
Mark Healy
waiter
Bill Mannix
MC at ballroom dance
Bootsy Collins
Steve Lewinson
Pete Lewinson
band 2 inside Tripps Festival
Ross Gurney-Randall
man counting money in club
Susannah Fellows
Birdie Wheaton
Rolf Saxon
Alden Wheaton
Chrissie Cotterill
June Ord
Grant Russell
cop
Heathcote Williams
professor
Charlotte Roach
desk nurse
Paul Corrigan
uniformed cop
Robert Vahey
Munton
Graham Seed
pseud in art gallery
Georgina Sowerby
woman in art gallery
Sam
Django
Rory
children at campsite
Certificate
18
Distributor
Pathé Distribution
9,905 feet
110 minutes 3 seconds
Dolby Digital Surround-Ex
Colour by
DeLuxe
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011