Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels

Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
directed by Guy Ritchie
starring Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, P.H. Moriarity, Lenny McLean, Vinnie Jones, Steve Sweeney, Frank Harper, Steve Mackintosh, Stephen Marcus, Peter McNicholl, Vas Blackwood and Sting
playing at selected theaters - hunt for it!
* * * (three stars)

no time to read the whole review?
THE JIST of MY PROSE Though heavily reminiscent of about a dozen other films, LS&2SB is a fluffy, scatterbrained good time. If you're planning on leaving your brain at the door - at least bring a paper and pencil to record all the characters and all the pies they've stuck their thumbs into. Great soundtrack, great montages, funny dialogue - a meal we've had before on a clean plate.

“Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” (LS&2SB) requires a viewer that is
willing to do the following : Leave part of his brain at the door (for he’ll not need it) and
keep the other part to index and remember the many, many characters (as you can see
above). The best way for me to reccomend this film is to say this : I saw a film called
“Shooting Fish” last year about two con men who fall in love with the same girl. It was as
light as a feather and left me feeling cool, but not intoxicated. “LS&2SB” is the exact
same kind of film. It’s no more original than any other film to come out of the “Pulp Fiction” knock-off genre and no more brilliant. On the other hand, it’s got it where it counts and keeps the little details creative and slick. Example : It’s got a great title, it’s got some great montages (a card game and a booze session) and it’s got some great camerawork. It’s essentially a funny movie, each of the characters cracking wise in different variations. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with
the film except that we’ve seen the likes of it before.

The characters are paper-thin and there’s no way for me to describe the entire
plot. The movie moves at a quick pace so there’s no time for either kind of development.
It’s involved, but extremely simplistic. The characters are likeable, but one-dimensional.
It’s really hard for me to say I enjoyed the film on a content level - but I did. Now, to immediately contradict myself, I will try to describe the storyline to you.

The film concerns four guys (Tom, Soap, Eddy, Bacon) who are basically no
good. They’re thieves, con men and the like. Tom is an expert card player and when he
has scraped together $100,000 lbs., he is allowed to participate in a game organized by
Hatchet Harry (Moriarty) and his goon, Barry the Baptist (McLean). The worst, as it
must, happens - Tom loses the money he puts up and ends up in debt to Hatchet Harry.
The rest of the plot has characters appearing and multiplying like rabbits. There’s four
henchman who are plotting to rob four potheads, operated by four more guys.
Somewhere in the middle of it, two other guys steal some guns for (the two “antique”
shotguns the title refers to) Barry the Baptist and sell them instead to Nick the Greek
(Marcus), who is mixed up with the head guy who owns the potheads, a smooth operator
called Rory Breaker (Blackwood). At this point, everybody ends up trying to rob
everybody else and the lone neutrality that points towards closure turns out to be a
shylock (If you’d bothered to see “Get Shorty”, you’d know what this word means by
now) called Big Chris (Jones), whose pride and joy (and partner in crime) turns out to be
his son, Little Chris (McNicholl). Don’t bother reading this again, the details’ll fall into
place as you watch.

The best things about the movie are it’s production values. The rock n’ roll
atmosphere, made sugar-sweet by the soundtrack, kicks into high gear from the first
frame and doesn’t let go. I won’t lie to you, the movie is as highly entertaining. Sure, it’s
not a perfect film, but it’s got style and in a world like this, style goes a long way.

(It’s particularly shameless to see “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” steal it’s
character introduction from “Trainspotting”, but then it was shameless to see
“Trainspotting” borrow this freeze-frame method (of stopping the audience’s attention to
force-feed us something) from “Mean Streets”. Where will it all end? I guess after
awhile, you can bastardize something so much it takes on a new form. Perhaps that’s not
far off.)

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws