Director Guy Ritchie doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to filmmaking. What he does (and does extremely well, by the way) is create jarring, hilarious, and atmospheric works of art. The man behind such modern classics as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” has done it again with his latest magnum opus, “RocknRolla.”
For Ritchie, who also wrote the screenplay, the prerequisites are all there: quirky, often unintelligible characters, a hierarchy of hustlers, each trying to pull a scam, stylish locations, and a filmmaking style that’s one part tongue in cheek, and one part love letter to the things we love about films. There are plenty of plenty of gorgeous people doing ugly things, with enough slow motion, clever shot staging, and post modern British music to make you wish that the worlds he creates were real.
The great thing about those worlds that he does create in each film is that every one is almost wholly unique. Sure, the basics are usually the same. Well off gangsters are forced to co-exist and deal with low life criminals with amusing nicknames. A scam or two (and sometimes more) goes wrong, and then it’s left up the audience to try and keep up and figure out who’s going to die and who deserves to die. The pacing and dialogue is rapid fire and sprays out to include almost everybody in the cast.
But that’s where the similarities among his films end. “RocknRolla” is the tale (at least to start out) of Archie, played by Mark Strong, the right hand man of Lenny, the underworld kingpin who controls most of the London real estate scene. No major building gets put up without Lenny’s approval; no permit gets by without his notice. Archie takes care of Lenny’s dirty work and makes sure his house stays in order. Along come two low level hoods from a group called the Wild Bunch, Mumbles and One Two, who have a real estate deal in mind as a way to get rich themselves. When the deal goes south, they end up owing Lenny a lot of money. Of course, they don’t realize that it was Lenny himself who pulled the plug on the deal. But they still need to pay him his money. Meanwhile, Lenny gets involved with an even bigger fish than he is, a Russian developer named Uri (Karel Roden) who doesn’t like to hear the word no. The Russian is willing to play ball with Lenny to get his stadium built. When the Russian gets ready to pay Lenny for his services, who should rob the money meant for Lenny but Mumbles and One-Two (with an assist from the Russian’s accountant, the very bored and very beautiful Stella)?
As with every Ritchie movie, this is just the beginning. Behind every criminal are two more minor criminals just trying to keep up with the action. Each hood has his own scam going, inter-connected to the main task at hand. It’s almost best to think of the cast as a demented family tree, with every branch trying to carve out a piece of the pie.
"RocknRolla" is out on DVD January 27th.
DIRECTOR: Guy Ritchie. PRODUCER: Joel Silver, Susan Downey, Steve Clark-Hall and Guy Ritchie. SCREENWRITER: Guy Ritchie. CAST: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Toby Kebbell, Jeremy Piven, Ludacris and Karel Roden.
MPAA RATING: R