It probably didn't help that I went into this film with high expectations, which were dashed within the first 15 minutes. Although the mood of 1987 was reasonably well captured, the story itself was poorly told. There was no effort to provide any backstory on any of the characters as to why they were friends and why the Smiths inspired them so. Instead, we are just dumped into the main event pretty much from the start and left to figure out why these characters are even friends and why we should care much about them (the mediocre acting performances didn't help).
Review of Shoplifters of the World
