I Want Candy

Getting a movie made is no mean feat, particularly if you have no funding, contacts, or indeed, the remotest idea of how to get a movie made.

This doesn’t stop Joe (Tom Riley) and Baggy (Tom Burke), however, the college teens who defy their arty film teacher (Mackenzie Crook) by attempting to put together a full-length feature film based on Baggy’s script.

Joe’s efforts as the producer of the piece are admirable, particularly when he talks his way into a production house in Soho. Unfortunately for Joe, the man on the receiving end of his pitch (a suitably sleazy Eddie Marsan) makes a slightly different genre of movie to the one he and Baggy had in mind – namely, porn.

A break is a break, and despite the need to change the script somewhat, Joe convinces the neurotic Baggy that making a porno could be their big break. But in order to get it funded, they’re going to need a reputable star. Possibly, the world famous Candy Fiveways…

Enter Carmen Electra as the big bosomed porn actress, in town to promote a new book. If Joe can convince her to star in the low-budget flick, it must just all come together.

In the style of British comedies of old, slapstick and innuendo is plentiful as the motley group of porn-makers attempt to film in the confines of Joe’s parents’ house, while staving off the attention of the shady Soho duo responsible for the film’s financing.

It’s by no means in the same league as the classics it craves to emulate, yet Candy is charming enough to sustain interest right up until the slightly mishandled climax. Tom Riley’s performance as the lippy Joe is a welcome surprise, particularly with Michelle Ryan, as a local waitress and love interest, looking lost outside of the confines of Albert Square.

Mackenzie Crook and Jimmy Carr will, rightly, garner the most attention with a pair of genuinely funny cameos, but a simplistic story and, perhaps intentionally, formulaic final reel will not impress too many over 16s.

Rich Phippen