Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Italian Neo-Realism is just downright hilarious!

Forty years after Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), Guy Ritchie surprised the world with his freshman feature length effort Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Both feature a cast of relative unknowns making eager but unsuccessful attempts at petty crime. But while Big Deal grounds its farcical elements with post-war Italian neo-realism, Lock, Stock is played largely for laughs and told with an infectious sense of film-school-reject style.

The principle foursome in Lock, Stock have a foolproof plan to make a handsome profit. Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham each pass on scrounged savings to their ringer Eddy (Nick Moran). Eddy then takes part in an illegal poker game featuring some of East London's most notorious gangsters. = Profits. What they don't count on however is the host of the card game Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty) cheating and putting the boys in over their heads. Now it's either come up with £100,000 or end up taking a swim in the Thames.

Nay, he cannot decipher my gambling visage.

There are side stories involving drugs, stolen antiques and a psychopath with a "cute cuddly thing" going on, all of which converge in flashes of confusion and absolute chaos. It was like watching an extended version of the last twenty minutes of The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) inter-spliced with Tom and Jerry shorts resulting in an ending that would make the cast of Seinfeld (1989-1998) proud. The rich irony of the situations created by Guy Ritchie (who also wrote the script) and the galvanizing moments of fate never lose their luster even after repeated viewings.

Oh and Vinnie Jones is in it too.

While Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire he no doubt wrote what he knew when he ascribed the bungling protagonists and their equally shortsighted foils. They are characters that you might bump into on the

Chevy Chase = Face

mean streets of East End complete with Cockney accents and colorful idioms. In the DVD extra bonus features there is even a Cockney to English dictionary that translates certain phrases like North=Mouth and Geezer=slightly older fellow. But lest you be too busy for the bonus features, at one point in the film, subtitles appear for bit to help non-Cockneys understand the comedy. In the words of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964) "There even are places where English completely disappears; in America they haven't used it for years."

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels makes for perfect rental fodder. It's breezy, funny, full of character and style while never slumping into moments of boredom. To Jason Statham fans, this movie is a must since not only did he explode onto the scene with this film, he shows he can actually act. To Guy Ritchie fans who no doubt have already seen Lock, Stock and prefer the more popular Snatch. (2000) I still would recommend giving this one another shot even if its sans a Brad Pitt. You never know what little details (or idioms) you might pick up.

D'ya lyke dahags?

Final Grade: A