rated on a 4-star scale screening venue : odeon ( liverpool city centre ) released in the uk by pathé on may 26 , 2000 ; certificate 18 ; 110 minutes ; country of origin uk ; aspect ratio 1 . 85 : 1 directed by david a . stewart ; produced by eileen gregory , michael peiser . written by dick clement , ian la frenais , david a . stewart , karen lee street . photographed by david johnson ; edited by david martin . " honest " is too confident and professional to really be called bad , but it's still a bewildering mess . there's too much going on in terms of art direction and too much going nowhere in terms of plot , and although it's intended as a star vehicle for the pop group all saints , two of them are hardly ever onscreen and the third plays a character who hides her feelings . i have a question for the four screenwriters : what the hell is this movie about , why does it take so long to get going , is it comic or dramatic , and who is the main player ? those all saints girls -- nicole appleton , natalie appleton and melanie blatt -- play three sisters in the east end of london in the 1960s . they dress up as men and pull armed robberies , but the folks in the neighbourhood don't know this , and think they're just a bunch of harmless young tarts . during one botched heist of a magazine office , an american hippie journalist , daniel wheaton ( peter facinelli ) , captures and then proceeds to fall in love with nicole's character , gerry . most of the movie is taken up by him following her around , and her telling him she's not interested ( but not why ) , and then he gets entangled in a big violent chase , as the girls' criminal pasts catch up with them . this probably sounds dull and confusing , and it is , not least because it's all that happens in the movie . things take forever to unfold , and yet somehow nothing is ever fleshed out . the three sisters never have a conversation that tells us anything about their personalities -- all their lines are questions , answers , orders or points of information . the script tries to use some of gerry and daniel's exchanges to compare the revolutionaries of the 1960s with the unchanging working class , but nothing much is made of this theme , because " honest " does not give us a convincing re-creation of its time . it doesn't so much take place in the 60s as in one of those " austin powers " -style pieces of production design overkill that pretend to be the 60s by teeming with joints , psychedelic polka-dot clothes , people saying " far out ! " and hit songs blasting out of every radio . lazy critics will blame the failure of this movie on the all saints , or on the director , the eurythmics' dave stewart , who are all musicians making their film debuts . but it's not their fault that they can't make sense of a script in which nothing happens for long stretches , and there is no real focus for anything , or reason for the period setting . it's not that i wasn't paying attention -- i watched " honest " so attentively that i even noticed the in-jokes on the road signs of the sets . copyright ( c ) 2000 ian waldron-mantgani please visit , and encourage others to visit , the uk critic's website at <a href= " http : //members . aol . com/ukcritic " >http : //members . aol . com/ukcritic</a> 
