THE CHAMPAGNE GANG is nothing more than an indie version of the Hollywood blockbuster CHARLIE'S ANGELS. It tries throughout to be slick and stylish but fails miserably in the attempt due to being nearly plotless and meandering. There's no real scope here at all, just a bunch of women chatting with barely any kind of action whatsoever. It's entirely aimless.

Wow! I haven't seen a movie this good since Caligula! The lead actress (Lacey Toups for those not in the know) is a cut above the rest. It was very cool to see Forest Whitaker do something small and indie like this for a change. As for the story, if I didn't know any better, I would have thought Michael Mann had something to do with the script. Every single detail of the Gang's criminal enterprise is scrutinized under an incredibly watchful eye. It makes sense though. The Champagne Gang is based on a true story and it shows. The sense of reality is a prevailing feeling throughout the movie. This is a must-see and most definitely a must-own. Awesome!!!

This film probably didn't have a bad concept, and at some point, I expect it will be remade with actresses you may have heard of who can actually act. And maybe they will get a screenwriter who can actually write dialog. Other than that, it was an excuse to put girls in bikinis and have them run around on the beach. Not that I normally object to that sort of thing, but... They start the movie out by telling you how it ends. We are told from the get-go, they are going to get arrested and sent to jail. Well, that kind of destroys the suspense, doesn't it? Then they go into the story of how this gang of shoplifters were recruited by a crime boss and taught how to engage in the glamorous job of robbing supermarket safes... Okay, more jiggling, more party scenes, a little burglary school montage (where is the "Team America" Montage song when you need it?), a few close calls, and they get caught. That only virtue of this movie it was direct to DVD, so you could fast forward through the boring parts, which is about half the movie.

Somewhere in the first 5 seconds of this horrible movie I realized that it didn't even have the budget to have some edge to it. I don't know how in God's name this was cycled into my local "Redbox" except maybe because it was shot entirely in San Diego. There is no redeeming quality to it whatsoever. I suppose I was supposed to be feeling allured by the cinematographer's choice to always center the camera on the "T" or the "A", but somehow it's like watching "The View" with the same approach.It's as if the director desperately wanted to give depth to the girls, but the cameras and everything else in the entire universe just wanted to turn them into objects. The closing shot of the movie was a close up on the butts of each of the girls, yet the dialog suggested something out of a feminist handbook.I think the biggest slap in the face to this worthless waste of 30 minutes of my life ( out of self preservation I had fast forwarded through most of it) is that after hearing throughout the entire movie, that these girls were the real deal, and they did these crimes in San Diego, and it's """"""based on a true story""""" that the true story was in fact about 4 MEN IN CANADA!!!! The setting and the fact they were hot girls were the ONLY two selling points, and you find out that neither EVER occurred.I could forgive everything else if it weren't boring, but it was, if there was intrigue or character development, or motive, or acting, or even a steady camera. There was nothing. I have made better movies with my brother in my backyard when I was 14.