Stealing Candy (2003)

Sadly Over-hyped

Fantastic!

As Good As It Gets

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This film is a porno. Dress it up however you like, it will always be a porno. But its a porno with a sniff of a plot, and while it's about as far fetched as you can get, its still a fair effort. A trio of crooks need money, and to do this they decide to kidnap a Hollywood actress. She doesn't normally do sex scenes, so they film her doing one of them and post it on the internet as pay per view.Daniel Baldwin and Coolio excepted, the acting is frankly laughable. Jenya Lano and the other guy whose name I can't remember are poor to say the least. It's the two guys I mentioned before that turn this movie from "Oh God No" to "Meh, it's OK I guess". Just about worth a rent, so give it a shot if you must. If you're a porno person, this might actually be the jump you need to start watching real movies.

Some movies have what I call a 'killer premise' - a core concept that's so intriguing and original that it's fool-proof. Any movie built around it is almost certain to entertain.Examples would include SPEED (if a bus goes under 50 mph, a bomb on board will detonate), S.W.A.T. (the police have to transport a mega-rich criminal across town - after he's publicly announced he'll give $100 million to whoever frees him) and PHONE BOOTH (man answers ringing public phone, only to be told he's in a sniper's sights and if he hangs up, he's dead).STEALING CANDY also boasts a killer premise, only in this case it's also dark, twisted, and ever so kinky. Namely, a group of criminals plan to make a fortune by kidnapping a world famous, glamorous, Hollywood movie star. Only they don't intend demanding any ransom - instead they're going to force her to have sex live on the pay-for- view website they've set up. But needless to say, things don't quite go as planned, resulting in some twists and turns that you probably won't see coming.Directed, produced and co-written by Mark L. Lester, who's best known for helming the Arnie action movie COMMANDO, and the sci-fi flick CLASS OF 1999, for most of it's running time STEALING CANDY is effectively a one set play with only four characters, and all of the principle cast deliver solid performances. Daniel Baldwin excels as the group's computer wizard, estranged from his wife & son and only involved in the scheme because his boy needs costly medical treatment. Rapper turned actor Coolio is surprisingly okay as the thuggish, untrusting and violence-prone member of the gang, while Alex McArthur - playing the mastermind - has proved in the past to be a reliable actor, but isn't too impressive here, perhaps because his role is less showy than his co-stars. As abducted movie goddess Candy Taylor (the Candy of the title) relatively unknown actress Jenya Lano is never less than utterly convincing, her stand-out scenes being those in which the gang want her to broadcast a message to her fans via the internet, and she has to immediately switch from terrified hostage to confident and alluring sex symbol.I would highly recommend STEALING CANDY to anyone looking for an intelligent adult movie or a dark, non-mainstream thriller. However, if you watch this film expecting a skin-fest you'll be disappointed. There are only three scenes featuring either nudity or partial nudity, and they're all relatively brief. However, the sequence in which Candy finally has sex on camera is very impressive: it's intense, genuinely erotic and sizzlingly hot. Some would say that it's over too quickly, but I'd disagree: sometimes less is more. It's certainly better than many of the sex scenes that appear in the majority of low budget erotic thrillers and vanilla porn flicks that litter the late night cable schedules.STEALING CANDY went straight to DVD, but considering how fond Hollywood is of recycling tried-and-tested concepts, I won't be surprised if a big budget movie revisits this idea in the next several years, in much the same way that the premise of LIBERTY STANDS STILL was given the studio treatment in PHONE BOOTH. It would be intriguing to see a genuine Hollywood goddess - someone like Nicole Kidman, Scarlet Johannsen or Jessica Alba - in the Candy role. Unlikely? Perhaps. But Meg Ryan shed her clothes a couple of years ago, in an attempt to revive her career with the adult movie IN THE CUT, so anything's possible.

Not a badly acted thriller: unlike other reviewers I didn't think Coolio's acting was so bad, but ... more and more I felt there were these questions raised within the story, often quite important ones, that never got resolved. Not just why, when Brad was disabled, didn't Walt or Candy grab his gun, but - why didn't he become suspicious when the lovemaking between Fred and Candy seemed so intense; why, in fact, was she so easy with it when she claimed to be a prude earlier; how could she be sure that they would all cancel each other out, and the sheriff would shoot Fred. Also, the fact that she was secretly in on the plot was let out too early. Finally, neither she nor anyone else in the film said a word about protection!

This wasn't a good movie, it wasn't a bad movie either. Definitely a rental. The concept of the movie was decent and I think it had a lot of potential. A couple of plot twists and a good looking girl like Jenya made it watchable. This could have been a great movie if it had a bigger budget and better stars.The premise of the movie is that three ex-cons kidnap a movie actress who has a "no nudity" clause in her contract, and persuade her to perform for the internet for some quick cash to be made for all three, only, you guessed it, something goes wrong.The award for best actor in the movie goes to Daniel Baldwin (purely coincidental, but I've seen a lot of his movies recently). He's the only character that had any depth put into it.I liked Jenya Lano and would like to see if she has some more range as an actress. She has appeared in S.W.A.T. and Blade but nothing else I have heard of. Hopefully, she'll put out some more meaningful movies in the future... And while I'm at it, I gotta say I love that name Jenya.Alex McArthur played the mastermind and did a mediocre job. No complaints, no compliments, just OK. It might have been fun to see Kelsey Grammer in this role in sort of a Sideshow Bob kind of way. It could have made it more interesting.Coolio, on the other hand, should get a Razzie. As far as rapper-actors go, he's on the bottom of that list, and the list itself is pretty much a bad list to be on anyways. Let's just say he's no LL Cool J. More than once he reminded me of a very unfunny Marlon Wayans and tried too hard to be the scary villain. He didn't succeed. Samuel L. Jackson seems a natural to play this part. Stick with what works. If anything, Coolio should have watched a Samuel L. Jackson movie to prepare. Typical rapper, they're all actors anyways but not many have any range past playing a thug. Enough said on that I suppose.Overall, the movie was another one in the middle of the road. I gave it a 6 out of 10 because I liked the idea of the movie and a few decent scenes but nothing more. Try to catch it on cable somewhere if possible.