Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Review

by Susan Granger (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)
March 28th, 1999
http://www.speakers-podium.com/susangranger.

Susan Granger's review of "LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS"
    Talk about hype! If you read the newspaper ads, this looks like an irresistible crime caper. Don't believe it - unless you're willing and able to decipher rhythmic Cockney slang, familiar only in London's East End. In fact, the garbled dialogue is so unintelligible that, in several scenes, there are even subtitles! The action-packed, Quentin Tarantino-like plot revolves around underworld ineptitude. Nick Moran plays a cocky card-shark who loses 500,000 pounds ($800,000) to a gambler in a rigged card game. He's told to pay up within a week or he and his hapless pals (Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, and Jason Statham) will get their bodily parts chopped off in increments, starting with the fingers. There is an alternative: he could get his father, played by Sting, to turn over his popular bar to the gambler. Since neither solution is appealing, Moran and his friends decide to rip off a neighborhood marijuana factory. There's lots of shooting, several battling gangs, Damon Runyon'ish characters (Hatchet Harry, Barry the Baptist, Big Chris) and even a few laughs in the midst of the crazy get-rich-quick schemes. One of the ploys involves stealing two valuable antique muskets - the titular smoking barrels. But, all in all, it's quite violent, repeatedly profane, and the characters are remarkably unpleasant to watch. Obviously, first-time writer/director Guy Ritchie has a talent for style and, given a more coherent story, he'll do good films in the future. But the virtues of this film lie in the rapid pace, MTV-like camera angles and quick cuts. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" is an edgy, fumbling 4, filled with double-crosses, chaos and corpses.

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