Snatch Review
by Shannon Patrick Sullivan (shannon AT morgan DOT ucs DOT mun DOT ca)March 5th, 2001
SNATCH (2000) / ** 1/2
Directed by Guy Ritchie, from his screenplay. Starring Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Alan Ford. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated R for extreme violence and offensive language throughout by the MFCB. Reviewed on March 5th, 2001.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
"Snatch" is possibly the most violent screwball comedy you'll ever see. Miscues and misunderstandings are the order of the day here, in a plot so incredibly convoluted it can only have been crafted that way intentionally. Really the lone thing differentiating "Snatch" from, say, "Bringing Up Baby" is that instead of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn stumbling around a forest looking for a missing lion, we have a roll call of comic-book gangsters stumbling around the London underground looking for a missing diamond. Oh, and the death toll is, of course, proportionately higher too.
(A quick proviso is necessary here: I understand that "Snatch" bears numerous similarities to writer/director Guy Ritchie's 1999 effort "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" and this has impacted many viewers' opinion of the movie. I've not yet seen the other film, though, so this will be a review of "Snatch" purely on its own merits.)
There are a lot of characters running about in "Snatch". Ritchie provides no less than two pictorial roll calls (one listing the characters by name, the other identifying the actors playing them), and probably wouldn't have gone wrong with two or three extra run-throughs at suitable intervals. Add to this the sheer number of swerves in which Ritchie's script indulges and "Snatch" may well prove bewildering to those not paying absolute attention to the goings-on.
But that appears to be Ritchie's aim -- this is one instance where the story exists basically as a framework for the movie's humour, rather than having the comedy service the central plotline. Those who can follow all the twists and turns may, in a way, get more out of "Snatch" than those unable to keep up, but this is not a prerequisite to enjoying the film. Most individual scenes work all by themselves -- as long as viewers have a general sense of what's happening, that's all they should need.
The gist of the story is this: Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) steals an enormous diamond in Antwerp and travels to England to unload it. He is being set up by one of his cronies, however, and is soon the target of two competing crooks, Russian lowlife Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedgia) and American diamond dealer Avi (Dennis Farina). The criminals employ a motley assortment of bumbling underlings such as Vinny (Robbie Gee), Sol (Lennie James) and the slightly more polished Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones).
Meanwhile, a tangentially-related series of events focusses on a two-bit boxing promoter named Turkish (Jason Statham) and his dimwitted partner Tommy (Stephen Graham). When their top fighter, Gorgeous George, is injured by a gypsy just before a big match, Turkish finds himself in debt to the ruthless Brick Top (Alan Ford). Brick Top, who has a fetish for turning his enemies into feed for his pigs, demands that Turkish find somebody else to put into the ring. In desperation, Turkish turns to the gypsy who beat up Gorgeous George in the first place, the slippery Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt). But when Mickey ignores Brick Top's demand that he throw the fight, Turkish's problems are only just beginning.
It is, to an extent, pointless to comment on the actors Ritchie has cast in "Snatch". All of the characters exist purely to fulfill their precise role in the plot; there is little in the way of colour or development to speak of. But despite the limitations of the script, several performers do manage to craft memorable characters. Ford, for example, transforms Brick Top into a terrifically menacing villain, despite the fact that -- with his too-thick glasses and retirement-home profile -- he looks like he should be out playing eighteen holes at Pebble Beach. Jones' Bullet Tooth is an elegant enforcer, brandishing an even mix of charm and intimidation.
Pitt, meanwhile, is great in a role that basically serves as a send-up of all the people who complain that they can't understand the accents and slang in English movies. As Mickey, Pitt speaks in a dialect so distorted that even the Brits can barely make out a word he's saying. (Ironically, I didn't find Mickey's accent all that indecipherable, bar the odd colloquialism. Perhaps that's because, with my Newfoundland upbringing, I've encountered accents and vernaculars far more peculiar than Mickey's.)
But Ritchie's real focus in "Snatch" is his brand of violent humour, obviously descended from Quentin Tarantino films such as "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction". Like Tarantino, Ritchie employs brutality, imaginative dialogue, and unusual cinematic techniques to achieve his desired effect. Consider, for example, one amusing, chronology-bending scene in which three groups of characters are driving along a street in close proximity to each other, and the way Ritchie portrays the effects each party's actions unknowingly have on the others.
There are a number of very funny sequences in "Snatch" -- for example, one character's obsession with a tea cosy used to cover up a corpse, a hilariously mishandled attempt by Vinny and Sol to hold up a betting joint, and Avi's closing remarks as he leaves the country (when asked if he has anything to declare, he grunts, "Yeah, don't go to England"). Jones in particular is funny in almost every scene he's in, whether he's being threatening or chummy.
But there are times when the humour is just too safe and predictable. Part of the reason Tarantino was so effective -- especially in "Pulp Fiction" -- is because it was so hard to guess what was going to happen next. Even with all the plot twists Ritchie implements, the broad arc of "Snatch" is still fairly apparent, and this dilutes the product.
Nonetheless, "Snatch" remains an entertaining movie for those who don't mind a few bullets and the occasional spattered blood mixed in with their chortles and guffaws. It might not be quite as clever as it thinks it is, but that still ranks it head and shoulders above a lot of other films.
Copyright © 2001 Shannon Patrick Sullivan.
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