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Imagine that you talk your three best friends into giving you their life savings for you to wager in a can't-miss high-stakes poker game. Imagine that, despite your remarkable card-playing skills, you somehow lose everything and even end up in debt to a fellow named `Hatchet' Harry, a local crime boss and porn king that once beat a man to death with a gigantic black rubber marital aid. Imagine Harry tells you that if you don't cough up his cash within a week, he'll send his henchman, Barry the Baptist, to start chopping off the digits of you and your friends.
That's the basic plot of Guy Ritchie's exhilarating big-screen debut, which was a critical and box office hit in England and the darling of this year's Sundance Film Festival. Ritchie's inspired directing technique, especially during the aforementioned card game (where it almost feels like you were actually punched in the stomach), is actually one-upped by his splendid script, which also includes a drug kingpin, a group of degenerates led by a guy named `Dog,' a stoned group of pot growers, two idiot hitmen, a father-and-son debt-collecting team, a pair of antique shotguns and a bartender played by Sting.
Sound confusing? It is for a while, but Ritchie ties everything up so deliciously in the last ten minutes that you can't help grin as the cast is hilariously thinned out by a series of misunderstandings and bad timing. What starts out as a hodgepodge of Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting and Reservoir Dogs slowly becomes as enjoyable and visually stylish as the films from which Lock, Stock draws its comparisons. For fans from across the pond, look for notorious soccer bad-boy Vinnie Jones as the debt-collector Big Chris and the late bare-knuckle fighting champ P.H. Moriarty as Barry the Baptist, a man who earned his name for his drowning interrogation style. The film also has a great soundtrack featuring The Stooges, The Stone Roses and James Brown. Produced by Trudie Styler (aka Mrs. Sting). (R – 1:05 extreme violence, adult language and brief nudity)
JON'S INTERVIEW WITH LOCK, STOCK STAR VINNIE JONES
`It's been emotional.'
That was the final line delivered by Big Chris, a vicious debt collector in the new, highly stylish British import Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The funny thing is that he utters it with as much vigor and emotion as a Stallone or a Van Damme.
But the actor playing Big Chris isn't a `big' action hero – he's Vinnie Jones, a major star in English soccer making his film debut in Lock, Stock. Describing his thuggish role, Jones says, `He's very tough and he's got a lot of respect on the street.' Jones adds `He takes his boy with him, Little Chris, and he's teaching him the ropes, but he's also trying to teach him manners.'
The scenes featuring Big and Little Chris are some of the most entertaining in the film. And the irony isn't lost on Jones, who has been known to strike fear into the hearts of opponents on the soccer pitch. `When I'm on the football field, I've got like a Jekyl and Hyde character; I know that,' Jones continues, `But I'm just going out there and I want to win, and sometimes that gets you into a lot of trouble.'
Trouble, indeed – Jones has been ejected from ten matches in his career, but that kind of passion might be what caught the eyes of casting directors. The 33-year-old Welsh star might sound like somewhat of a British Dennis Rodman – he made a few cameo appearances on British TV and even hosted his own award-winning television talk show. `It was a lads' show really,' Jones notes, `It was based in a pub and we had a live audience sort of thing. I'd invite guests into the pub, three or four at a time, to talk about football and women and magazines.'
And that's not the only acting experience on Jones' resume – he also grappled with Stone Cold Steve Austin when the World Wrestling Federation made a stop in London last December. `I got in and knocked him out and I had a couple of fights with The Bossman,' beams Jones, also noting that there isn't much difference between acting in the WWF and acting in feature film.
`My energy is going to be toward movies now,' Jones remarks, `If I get a big enough part, I shall just hang the ol' boots up, I think.' He has played for such prestigious English clubs as Chelsea, Leeds, Sheffield United and Wimbledon, the team he first signed with in 1986, giving up his less glamorous job as a brick carrier. He hasn't played since November, when he was passed over for a coaching job at his last club, Queens Park. `I think the football part of my life is drawn to an end and this (film) is another challenge I want to get on with.'
Jones couldn't have picked a better film for his debut; Lock, Stock was a monster hit in England, earning the princely sum of $19.3 million on a paltry $1.6 million budget. Describing the reactions at screenings during the Sundance Film Festival, Jones says the audience reaction `was brilliant – it's been getting standing ovations.' The film, best described as a cross between Reservoir Dogs and Trainspotting, was the only film that generated widespread excitement at Sundance.
Up next for Jones is writer/director Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock follow-up, The Diamonds. But the London Sunday Times reports that Jones is in negotiations to play a British spy in the upcoming Tom Cruise vehicle, Mission Impossible II. `I haven't received any phone calls about it, but you never know,' muses Jones. `I'm just an apprentice in this business at the moment. I just don't know how things work or anything like that. It's flattering to be even mentioned in that context.' Ironically, the same newspaper also reported that Cruise plans to shoot an American version of Lock, Stock.
After The Diamonds, Jones says, `I don't really have any plans. I'm just going to see how this movie goes out here and see if we get any offers of any other bigger movies.' He reflects on his career by stating, `It's fantastic. I suppose it's any lad's dream to be a big football player and then try the chance of being in movies. I've done this very much for a challenge, just for a change of direction and it's all snowballed.'
We should all be so lucky in our careers.
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