A Victim Of Its Own Success

Rating: 9/10 (7 May 2003)

I watched this soon after it was released on video and was blown away ( Geddit ? ) by it . Unfortunately after seeing it a few more times since then I notice it`s become a victim of its own success . By that I mean every single British film released between 1999 and 2002 seemed to be about gangsters in one form or another carrying out a scam against a funky soundtrack in an inferior retread of LSATSB . In fact Guy Ritchie isn`t below plagerising himself with SNATCH which was basically the same film stylewise . But this was the original and best of the Brit gangster new wave. Brilliantly written in a sharp bleakly comical style with some mind bending cinematography by Tim Maurice Jones . There is some criticism that the acting is a bit wooden but I guess that`s deliberate on the part of Ritchie so that the dialogue comes to the fore . And what great lines the characters have , especially Rory`s " Do you understand Nicholas ? Good cos if you don`t I`ll kill ya " speech .
BTW this film cost less than one million pounds to make . Take note Hollywood that you don`t have to spend tens of millions of dollars to make a great movie