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Usually it might seem a tad unfair to begin a review by referring to the director's missis. But then the missis in question wouldn't usually be Madonna--a woman whose ability to reinvent herself several times before breakfast seems in marked contrast to that of hubby Guy Ritchie. Certainly, this follow-up to the filmmaker's breakthrough film--the high-energy, expletive-strewn cockney-gangster movie
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels--hardly breaks new ground being, well,
another high-energy, expletive-strewn cockney-gangster movie. OK, so there are some differences. This time around our low-rent hoodlums are battling over dodgy fights and stolen diamonds rather than dodgy card games and stolen drugs. There has been some minor reshuffling of the cast too, with Sting and Dexter Fletcher making way for the more bankable Benicio Del Toro and Brad Pitt, the latter pretty much stealing the whole shebang as an incomprehensible Irish gypsy. And, sure, people who really, really liked
Lock, Stock--or have the memory of a goldfish--will really, really like this. The suspicion lingers, however, that if the director doesn't do something very different next time around then his career may prove to be considerably shorter than that of his missis.
--Clark Collis
Guy Ritchie caused a stir-mistaken by some for a storm-with his first feature, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." Not wishing to tamper with a winning formula, he has returned to the scene of the crime, delivering a further batch of never quite credible Cockneys. They have names like Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) and Brick Top (Alan Ford), and they converse in the artful patois that Ritchie continues to sell as echt. The plot, this time, is more convoluted, involving a diamond theft and a series of boxing matches, none of which, naturally, go according to plan. Ritchie's strength is the running gag; one can only grow fond of a dog that has swallowed a rubber toy and thus squeaks when it tries to bark. His weakness is a hectic, self-advertising style that wearies what it's meant to quicken; you come out feeling sated and soiled. The cast is honored by the presence of Benicio Del Toro, first seen in the garb of a Hasidic Jew, and especially by Brad Pitt, who plays what is rumored to be an Irish Gypsy, although no one, least of all the other characters, can decipher what he has to say. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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