A Nice Diversion
Guy Ritchie's first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a fun, complex, witty crime romp from 1998. Imaginatively shot and edited, the cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones uses a sepia-tinted color that makes the film look like something from the 1960s, perhaps a movie that hasn't been restored by computers. Niven Howie's editing unapologetically slows and speeds up action, stopping it sometimes in still frames, accompanied by narration that I found hard to absorb at first, but after a time I didn't care because the film takes off on its own, as if Ritchie figured the viewer would eventually watch it again to get the nuances.
According to a short IMDB biography, Ritchie's film school experience influenced him only insofar as he found the other students' films boring. He evidently wanted to do something with verve and aliveness, much as new wave British filmmakers of the 1960s like Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger virtually attacked their subjects with fresh energy, making more sedate and classical filmmakers like David Lean and Anthony Asquith seem old style piano concerto rather than rock and roll. Richardson's A Taste of Honey and Schlesinger's Billy Liar and Darling are as fresh and vivid now as they were fifty-some years ago. Guy Ritchie's first film has this feel to it.
Populated with characters made colorful not only for their physical appearances but also their language, some of which is underworld slang, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels features at least one actor who went on to international fame, mainly as an action star, Jason Statham. Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Lenny McLean (as the gigantic enforcer who comes across like Lawrence Tierney in Reservoir Dogs), and the utter shit Harry Lonsdale the Porn King, played by P.H. Moriarty, are all excellent.
Eddy (Nick Moran)--his father played by Sting in a small role--raises a quarter of a million pounds to play in what turns out to be a poker game rigged in Harry Lonsdale's favor. Losing everything, Lonsdale spots him the half a million that's in the pot, but insists on being repaid in one week, or Eddy and his three friends will have their fingers sliced off and then "we'll see what else."
Eddy lives next door to some other criminals planning a robbery of weed-growers who always have lots of cash on their premises. From their surveillance, Eddy and his friends hatch a plot to rip off the robbers after they themselves rip off the weed-growers. To do this they need guns, sawed off shotguns preferably. It's the U.K., not the U.S., so coming by guns isn't easy. They end up buying, for 700 pounds, a pair of old hunting shotguns which actually are coveted by Harry Lonsdale the Porn King (he owns a porn shop). The shotguns are estimated to be worth up to a half million pounds. These guns, the robbery on the weed-growers, the foolish attempt to sell the weed back to the main distributor who figures out it's his own weed he's being offered, all lead to shootouts, misunderstandings, reversals of plot, and much entertainment for the viewer.
It's a bloody story, yes, but worth watching. The crazy tale is well told, well-acted and filmed, a modern-day crime comedy from long enough ago, 1998, to shine like a small gem from before the world got even crazier.
Vic Neptune
Guy Ritchie's first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a fun, complex, witty crime romp from 1998. Imaginatively shot and edited, the cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones uses a sepia-tinted color that makes the film look like something from the 1960s, perhaps a movie that hasn't been restored by computers. Niven Howie's editing unapologetically slows and speeds up action, stopping it sometimes in still frames, accompanied by narration that I found hard to absorb at first, but after a time I didn't care because the film takes off on its own, as if Ritchie figured the viewer would eventually watch it again to get the nuances.
According to a short IMDB biography, Ritchie's film school experience influenced him only insofar as he found the other students' films boring. He evidently wanted to do something with verve and aliveness, much as new wave British filmmakers of the 1960s like Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger virtually attacked their subjects with fresh energy, making more sedate and classical filmmakers like David Lean and Anthony Asquith seem old style piano concerto rather than rock and roll. Richardson's A Taste of Honey and Schlesinger's Billy Liar and Darling are as fresh and vivid now as they were fifty-some years ago. Guy Ritchie's first film has this feel to it.
Populated with characters made colorful not only for their physical appearances but also their language, some of which is underworld slang, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels features at least one actor who went on to international fame, mainly as an action star, Jason Statham. Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Lenny McLean (as the gigantic enforcer who comes across like Lawrence Tierney in Reservoir Dogs), and the utter shit Harry Lonsdale the Porn King, played by P.H. Moriarty, are all excellent.
Eddy (Nick Moran)--his father played by Sting in a small role--raises a quarter of a million pounds to play in what turns out to be a poker game rigged in Harry Lonsdale's favor. Losing everything, Lonsdale spots him the half a million that's in the pot, but insists on being repaid in one week, or Eddy and his three friends will have their fingers sliced off and then "we'll see what else."
Eddy lives next door to some other criminals planning a robbery of weed-growers who always have lots of cash on their premises. From their surveillance, Eddy and his friends hatch a plot to rip off the robbers after they themselves rip off the weed-growers. To do this they need guns, sawed off shotguns preferably. It's the U.K., not the U.S., so coming by guns isn't easy. They end up buying, for 700 pounds, a pair of old hunting shotguns which actually are coveted by Harry Lonsdale the Porn King (he owns a porn shop). The shotguns are estimated to be worth up to a half million pounds. These guns, the robbery on the weed-growers, the foolish attempt to sell the weed back to the main distributor who figures out it's his own weed he's being offered, all lead to shootouts, misunderstandings, reversals of plot, and much entertainment for the viewer.
It's a bloody story, yes, but worth watching. The crazy tale is well told, well-acted and filmed, a modern-day crime comedy from long enough ago, 1998, to shine like a small gem from before the world got even crazier.
Vic Neptune
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