Genre: Crime Thriller, Black Comedy
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong
Running Time: 114 minutes (plus trailers)
Guy Ritchie completes what could be called his trilogy of British Gangster films with RocknRolla, an intricate, confusing, amusing but somewhat lacklustre caper set in the London criminal underground. After a very promising start in the late 90’s with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, The British director’s career then went into the toilet following his marriage to pop princess Madonna; his next film Swept Away which starred his new wife was a critical and commercial disaster. Likewise, Revolver (which I have intentionally avoided) was called one of the worst movies of 2005, and it seemed as though Ritchie was lost forever, victim to a modern day Yoko Ono. But now, with divorce papers signed, Guy Ritchie makes his long awaited glorious comeback…sort of.
The story follows a property deal that goes wrong through the interference of various eccentrics, including small time crook One Two (played by Gerard “this is Sparta” Butler), shifty accountant Stella (Thandie Newton in a performance so bad that it almost destroys the whole movie), old school mobster Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) and drug addled rock-star Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell.) RocknRolla is incredibly similar to Ritchie’s earlier works, complete with frenetic editing, bumbling criminals, interweaving character arcs, foul language, sporadic violence and a deadpan narrator. Like Lock Stock and Snatch, it takes enormous effort on the part of the audience to follow what is going on, but unlike those films, when the end credits role you don’t feel completely satisfied. The movie is good; highlights include a seemingly never ending chase sequence and a really clever elevator scene at the end, but Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is one of my all time favourite films, and I left RocknRolla disappointed. Hopefully this film is the end of Ritchie’s obsession with the London criminal fraternity; his next film is an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. As for RocknRolla…it’s funny and worth seeing…if you do, and kind of like it, rent Lock Stock, a far superior film
Rating: 6/10
