Great story, Great film

Rating: 8/10 (24 August 2004)

For `Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', you can pretty much just refer to my review of Guy Ritchie's `other' great film, `Snatch', because everything that I love about `Snatch' can be supplanted with my feelings for `Lock, Stock'. Less flashy than `Snatch', but with a brilliant script, `Lock, Stock' is a fantastic film.
In `Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', we encounter four London guys, three of whom are operating on a plane slightly on the wrong side of the law. Tom, (Jason Flemyng) operates as a small-time fence, Bacon (Jason Statham) is a small-time street con and Eddie (Nick Moran) is Bacon's some time partner in crime, whose specialty is cards. The fourth member of their circle, Soap, (Dexter Fletcher) is the one member of their group who, as a chef, tries to keep his nose clean at all times. When the four of them get bored with barely surviving the lives they have mapped out for themselves, they each take their savings and give it to Eddie so that he can play in a high stakes poker game which he is almost certain to win. This would all run smoothly if the guy who runs the game didn't cheat and therefore clean them out as well as an additional large sum of money, given to them on loan. The foursome then find themselves needing to come up with the money within a week or their lives are at stake, so they have to come up with a way to get the money fast.
As with `Snatch', `Lock, Stock' has a large cast of colorful characters who intertwine with one another to make up one hell of a wild ride. If two characters don't actually meet face to face, it is certain that they at least have a couple of people involved that they each know, which turns the plot into a kind of `Six Degrees of Anyone in the Film'. What `Lock, Stock' doesn't have that `Snatch' has is star power (Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro) and presumably, the same budget, but the great thing is that it doesn't need either. The acting by (at the time) relative unknowns to the general American audience is just great, and while there are some really great action scenes and some fun camera angles, the spectacle that accompanies `Snatch' is not as prevalent in `Lock, Stock.' Still, the film is just as good  so does that make it a better film? Definitely not; and choosing which Guy Ritchie film, for me at least, is like a mother choosing which child is her favorite. (Yes, I'm that much of a film geek) But `Lock, Stock' is an excellent, character and plot-driven film that deserves all of the accolades it has received, and then some.
--Shelly