SNATCH Reviewed by Jerry Saravia January 27th, 2001
Director Guy Ritchie is now best known as Madonna's husband, and that can either be a help or a hindrance to his career. His new film, "Snatch," is being advertised as such or as the ads proclaim, "check out Madonna's husband's new movie!" In truth, "Snatch" is a fun waste of time, a loud, obnoxious, jump-cut laden comic book of a movie. Though not nearly as good as Ritchie's debut, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," it is fitfully good enough.
The incomprehensible plot has to do with an eighty-six carat diamond stolen by jewel thief Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro), who has to deliver it to Avi (Dennis Farina), his boss in New York. The problem is that Franky has bets on a boxing match at a London bookie joint run by the wonderfully witty-mixed-with-toughness charm of a Russian gangster (Rade Serbedzija). Suddenly, a series of double crosses and frantic coincidences take place, involving some pawnbrokers, an excitable dog who swallows the sought-after diamond and a stuffed pig, a realistically brutal crime kingpin (Alan Ford), two boxing promoters (Jason Statham and Stephen Graham) and "Lock, Stock" returnee Vinny Jones as the appropriately named Bullet Tooth Tony. And there is the comedically engaging Brad Pitt as an Irish gypsy with an accent so indiscernible that his own friends have to repeat his words so everyone can understand him. Obviously Pitt is doing riffs on his own questionable Irish accent in "The Devil's Own."
"Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" was a frenzied cartoon yet "Snatch" is even more frenzied. It is fraught with jump cuts, loud music, shotgun blasts galore, heavy British accents, graphic violence, Jewish v.s. African-American racist slurs, and just about everything else you think would offend and shock the arthouse crowd of safe, risk-free cinema. Not that "Snatch" is anything new or that it takes any real risks, but it sure will cause revulsion for people who support Sir Richard Attenborough.
There are plenty of laughs and enough wicked black humor to make "Snatch" a decent evening out at the movies. Just do not expect coherence, only wild visual pyrotechnics and a helluva a good performance by Mr. Pitt.
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E-mail me with any questions, comments or general complaints at jerry@movieluver.com or at Faust667@aol.com
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