Director: Stephen Surjik

Cast: Tom Riley, Tom Burke, Carmen Electra

Synopsis: Joe and Baggy are two misfit English film school students whose first movie goes awry. Desperate to finance their flick, they turn to a porn producer who agrees to give them the money …

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I Want Candy is a bit like those American ‘sex’ comedies of the mid-sixties, the kind that featured Rock Hudson or Natalie Wood. They often featured the word ‘Sex’ in their title, and that was about as close as the movie — and its pretty leads — ever came to the actual act itself. I Want Candy is the improbable tale of a couple of film students (Tom Burke and Tom Riley) from Leatherhead who are so desperate to get their psychological love story onto the big screen that they somehow end up turning it into a porn film for a crooked sleaze merchant (Eddie Marsan). In keeping with the passing similarity to reality, Marsan’s porn merchant is about as frightening as a jack terrier, but he’s always worth watching anyway.

The film itself is pleasant enough, although it’s easy to see why some might feel cheated by the mild sexual content, but it begins to feel increasingly rushed as it approaches what is, frankly, a completely daft conclusion. There are a few laughs along the way though, including a typical two semi-naked men trapped in a bathroom stint reminiscent of the British sex farces of the early 70s, an amusingly worked case of confrontational mistaken identity, and a woman who can perform incredible tricks with what seems to be an endless supply of ping pong balls. In the midst of all these tame laughs is one gross-out moment that is totally out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the film, and an attempt by one of the lads to bed the glamorous porn star they have hired that seems to be shoehorned in to the plot so that the hoary old cliche of ‘lecherous man caught by numerous bystanders as he waits in his smalls for the lady who is never going to turn up for their rendezvous’ can be revisited.

Apart from these shortcomings, Burke and Riley make a likable pair of leads and Carmen Electra looks beautiful. I Want Candy will painlessly see you through an hour-and-a-half, but you will be hard-pressed to remember much about it in a very short space of time.