Rating: 
 

The Info

Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Written by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Steven Mackintosh, Vinnie Jones, Sting, Lenny McLean, P.H. Moriarty
Produced by: Matthew Vaughn
 

The Nutshell

An inept group of petty thieves have to raise half a million pounds in 7 days to pay off a poker debt with hilarious results

The Review

  When Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction came out in 1994, its blend of hip, wisecracking hitmen, non-linear timeline, and disgusting violence made it a hit. It went on to earn several Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Original Screenplay. Naturally, a long line of imitators were bound to follow. Since then, numerous films have mimicked Pulp's style to lesser success (Kiefer Sutherland's criminal in Truth or Consequences, N.M. is a good example). Last year, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels opened in the U.K. and was hailed as the "hippest film since Pulp Fiction." It was a huge financial success and has now opened here in North America. While the comparison to Pulp is not a surprise (notice how every British film to open here is now dubbed "this year's Full Monty!"), it does not do writer/director Guy Ritchie's masterpiece justice. Ritchie has his own particular style and his characters share none of the hipness of Quentin Tarantino's.

    The comparison was probably brought on by the story. While told in a linear fashion (unlike Pulp), it follows several different small groups of criminals in stories that eventually all converge (like Pulp). Ritchie wisely uses a voice-over to introduce each of the main characters to us, as while each has his own different personality, the actors often look the same, causing a bit of confusing until you've gone a ways into the film. The focus of the film is on Eddy (Moran), an expert poker player who needs 100,000 pounds to enter a high-stakes game he knows he can win. The game is chaired by pornography king Hatchet Harry (Moriarty), whose henchman Barry The Baptist (McLean) secretly helps his boss cheat. Eddy winds up owning Harry 500,000 pounds, a debt that must be paid in 7 days or else.

    Multiple smaller storylines involve two small-time crooks being hired by Barry The Baptist to steal two priceless old muskets and a gang of crooks planning the theft of a large amount of drugs from another group, to name a few. The film focuses mostly on Eddy and his gang of petty-thief buddies Tom, Soap and Bacon (Flemyng, Fletcher and Statham respectively). They are all a bit on the dim side and tend to get into misadventures (one humourous scene has two of them winding up in a Samoan pub while a man aflame runs screaming out... trust me its funny). There is a definite contrast between Ritchie's gangs of intellectually stunted crooks and Tarantino's hip hitmen.

    Audiences will doubtless spend the first 15 minutes of the film tuning their ears to the occasionally indecipherable British accents of the film's young stars. Headliners Moran, Flemyng and Fletcher all have a likeable onscreen presence and their characters are amusing. While Moran's Eddy stands out a bit, it is largely due to his being the central character. The only false note in the film is the occasional presence of Sting as Eddy's father. Sting's is the only recognizable face in the film, and his is the only character that never has fun. Every single scene in Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels has at least a few chuckles, except for Sting's. Eddy's dad JD seems to be some kind of bore, standing up for himself in the face of bad guys but failing to be a part of this film's style. Luckily he is only in perhaps three small scenes, and the rest of the characters have a big ball of fun without him. Go see this film. You will love it.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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