LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (Gramercy) Starring: Nick Moran, Jason Flemyng, Jason Statham, Dexter Fletcher, Vinnie Jones, Frank Harper, P. H. Moriarty, Lenny McLean. Screenplay: Guy Ritchie. Producer: Matthew Vaughn. Director: Guy Ritchie. MPAA Rating: R (violence, profanity, brief nudity, drug use) Running Time: 108 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It's tough to knock a film as undeniably invigorating as LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS without coming off as an impossible-to-please crank. Yes, it's generally funny, clever and unpredictable; true, it's plotted with a precision that should make aspiring screenwriters take notes; indeed, it has visual style to spare. Guy Ritchie's caper/comedy/thriller has a savage entertainment value that's awfully hard to find anymore. It's also a film without an ounce of humanity, a narrative machine where the fun feels hollow because the characters come with names and virtually nothing more.
That's a problem that really only nags in hindsight, since you'll spend all your viewing time just trying to keep up. The tale begins with four London pals -- Eddy (Nick Moran), Tom (Jason Flemyng), Bacon (Jason Statham) and Soap (Dexter Fletcher) -- who pool their small-time criminal resources to come up with 100,000 pounds to get cardsharp Eddy into a high stakes game. Unfortunately, Eddy is victimized by some dirty dealing, and ends up half a million pounds in debt to a sordid character named "Hatchet" Harry Lonsdale (P. H. Moriarty). Faced with only seven days to avoid an unpleasant fate at the hands of Harry's henchman Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean), the quartet comes up with a desperate plan to get the necessary money: ripping off a van full of cash and marijuana from a gang of thugs who just ripped it off from someone else.
Believe it or not, that's the simple part of the multi-layered plotting in LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. Also tied into the main story: the theft of two antique guns from an estate auction; a trio of over-their-heads pot farmers; Jheri-Curled, sports fanatic crime boss Rory (Vas Blackwood); and an enforcer-for-hire named Big Chris (Vinnie Jones) who has a soft spot for his young son. There are plenty of occasions during the first half of the film when it feels over-populated, over-plotted and over-directed, sending situations, vertiginous camera angles and new faces at the audience in overwhelming waves. Only Ritchie's appealing wit might keep you from throwing up your hands and throwing in the towel.
Fortunately, the second and third acts offer so much propulsive action that forgiveness for the early excesses becomes fairly easy. Ritchie manages to pull all these threads together quite deftly, creating a series of confrontations which continuously whip up new permutations of violence, dark humor and surprise. There are missteps here as well -- including a depiction of the protagonists' celebrating an apparent victory which resembles a drinking binge by the Monkees -- but the caper itself is engrossing enough to help hide them. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS blindsides you with its sheer momentum, the pieces falling into place so rapidly that you can't help but admire Ritchie's audacity.
It's considerably harder to admire his thoroughgoing lack of interest in his characters except as gun-toting props. Every bit of color in the film's performances comes from the use of physical types -- the bald, imposing Barry; the short, high-strung Rory; strapping but soft-spoken Big Chris. Quentin Tarantino often is credited with inspiring a slew of nihilistic comic-crime imitators, but Tarantino's way with actors and redemption-hungry characters has always given him away as a closet humanist, and has always tempered his infamous violent streak. Guy Ritchie has a gift for adrenaline, to be sure, but he sends that adrenaline through a body that has no heart. You can't knock a director in 1999 who at least makes you want to watch. You just wish this rowdy bit of entertainment made you want to care about something, anything, besides how many bodies will pile up before the credits roll.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 barrel roles: 7.
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