Merrick here...


The Beef's back with a look at Guy Ritchie (trailer HERE).

Okay, there's Tom Wilkinson, and he's the big dog. There's Gerard Butler and Idris Elba, who are crooks for hire. There's some dude named Johnny Quid who plays rock 'n roll. Thandie Newton is......
Nevermind.

You know SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS? Well, replace the muskets from LOCK, STOCK and the diamond from SNATCH with a painting. That's ROCKNROLLA. It's a simplistic description of the story, but honestly are there really that many differences between LOCK, STOCK and SNATCH in terms of plot devices, characters, names, the endings, etc.? ROCKNROLLA, for better or worse, is no less SNATCH than SNATCH is LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS.

The plot is convoluted, like the other two. There's a bunch of people- some mean, some dull, some funny in their ineptitude, and some that are just pure and simple "rock n' roll"- who are all, in one way or another, affected through their presence in the presence of a stolen painting or by association with someone that was affected through their presence in the presence of a stolen painting. Ultimately, Wilkinson is the boss of the criminal underground of London and has found himself in a predicament where a painting that was loaned to him, as a show of good faith in a business deal by a real honcho, needs to be returned. The only problem is that the painting was stolen from his house, and the only person that could have taken it is his estranged, presumably dead rock 'n roller son Johnny Quid. So, how does one find a dead man?

The stories in Guy Richie's films are hardly the highlights. Yeah, they're complex and the fact that everything comes together in the end is impressive, but like (and I hate to make this comparison) the Coen Brothers films it's the clashing of the different character personalities that makes for entertainment, and on that level the film succeeds. However, unlike SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK (to a degree) something seems to be missing.

A friend of mine called ROCKNROLLA Diet Coke to SNATCH's Coke. I'll go with that. The label still says Coke, it still fizzles, but something has definitely been replaced in the recipe. That being said, I'd much rather have diet than flat soda.

I think the difference maker is that SNATCH, all around, is just a much funnier picture. It's more playful than ROCKNROLLA which only gets playful whenever Gerard Butler and his gang are on screen, and that isn't often enough. Butler, Elba, and Tom Hardy as the characters One Two, Mumbles, and Handsome Bob are arguably the best part of the film. Wilkinson is great as the extremely cruel Lenny Cole, but at its core ROCKNROLLA wants to be a fun movie and if Butler, Elba, and Hardy are not in the scene then the movie is not fun, period. It isn't bad, it just isn't fun. But, when those three are on screen it's classic Guy Ritchie.

I'm hesitant to call ROCKNROLLA a return to form. It isn't really a return to "form" as much as it is just a return to what Guy Ritchie has shown to do best. It's akin to watching a star running back come back from a devastating leg injury. They can still run, and run well, but they aren't quite comfortable enough putting pressure on that leg to make those same cuts and dashes to break the big plays. His game is still productive, but it doesn't exactly have that same explosive burst that would have turned the 10 yard gains in ROCKNROLLA into the 30 yard gains he had in SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS.

Thanks,

The Beef