The return of the smart Brit crim flick.

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2007)

Kudos to Guy Ritchie for almost single handedly resurrecting the Brit crime flick. Without him there would be no Sexy Beast and no Layer Cake, there would most likely be no Vinnie Jones or Jason Statham either. The intertwining of multiple plot lines has been been before, and most likely he has used Pulp Fiction here as a model. Only his plot is much more involved, his dialogue more believable and his characters more real than any one figure in Tarantino's vehicle. The result is a smart, sassy and savvy film, that takes us into a seedy underworld, where the characters convey more menace with a single look, word or gesture than Pulp Fiction can sustain throughout. As a result l found myself far more engaged and wondering how the story was going to be resolved than in any other crime film l can recall in of the last couple of decades.
Bloody excellent stuff.