"Planks o'wood! I'm working with f*****' planks o'wood!"

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2000)

Just two short years since it's release, time has already made it possible to detest Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
For a start, this is the film that resurrected a trend for half-baked British gangster films (Circus, Love, Honour and Obey, Rancid Aluminium...), not to mention it's own spin-off television series. Sexist, racist, homophobic and charmless, "Lock Stock" (3) was the ultimate extension of the "new lad" mindset; only an irresistibly funky theme tune preventing it from being completely irredeemable. In the midst of all this it's very easy to forget that the movie which started it all is actually a halfway decent film.
It's no classic, of course. Direction, themes and execution are all highly derivative. Then there's the acting, or lack thereof. The wooden delivery of many players is such that the stylised, witty/self-conscious and contrived (delete as applicable) dialogue sounds one hundred times worse than it actually is. Nick Moran, while being better than most involved, is possibly the most annoying, his poor man's Michael Caine routine wearing thin very, very quickly.
In this sense it's perhaps fortunate that the movie is also the acting debut of footballer Vinnie Jones. Being surrounded by such underachieving thespian talent makes him seem a whole lot better than he actually is; though he does fine. The same can't be said of Sting, I'm afraid. There's also a nice cameo by Red Dwarf's Cat, Danny John-Jules, as a subtitled, jive-talking Cockney.
Ultimately, despite it's obvious shortcomings, the multiple plot strands and timeframes of this movie are thrown together with such force, pace and comic-book vigour that it does make for passable, average entertainment. Just one question: why do they all call Tom fat? He don't look that porky to me! Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - 5.