The A Plate is a straightforward enough romantic comedy from independent filmmaker Terre Weisman. Jay (Shane Jacobsen) is the sales manager at a car dealership, but has his eye on the top job, the dealer, which would earn him the apparently coveted ‘A plate’ for his car. Through some slightly harebrained scheming he pits the husband and wife owners against each other in the hopes of coming out on top, but along the way ends up falling in love with their daughter, Andrea (Julie Ann Emery).

At its best, the film is innocuous enough, simply another forgettable entry in a competitive genre, hitting predictable rom-com plot beats along with an all-too-familiar redemptive story. The used car dealership setting and ‘A plate’ conceit seem like they might serve as a novel twist, but beyond an introductory voiceover acknowledging the oddity of a passion for dealing cars, little is done to discuss or explain Jay’s fixation on the ‘A plate’.

The film’s comedy mostly falls flat, betrayed by a limp script and an almost complete absence of comic timing from the leads and director alike. Sam McMurray is wasted as the dealership’s owner, but does his best with difficult material. The film’s few chuckles come Jay’s dementia-dappled grandfather (Angelo Nargi), who is possessed of an energy and lightness of touch absent in his younger counterparts.

Once again, ugly gender politics rear their head, with extensive jokes about the ‘slutty’ receptionist and overweight accountant hinging largely on which men they will or won’t have sex with (and which will or won’t have sex with them). Regardless of being borderline offensive, this for the most part is just plain lazy. The A Plate is a film in which whipped cream is sprayed onto a man’s genitals at least three times, and implied a few more – an act which is no more funny the first time than the last.

There’s unfortunately little to recommend in The A Plate. There’s no shortage of similar films that pack more laughs in their first five minutes than The A Plate manages throughout its running time. Watch one of them instead.

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