entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (21 January 2002)

For $8 million, this is a fricking monument of 1990's film. The first time I saw it I laughed at most of the jokes and followed the plot with pleasure. That's more than I can say about any number of movies in the 1990's that cost ten times as much to make and starred pricey talent. The editing is clever and cute. The casting is just short of flawless. Of the four principles, only Bacon seemed consistent to me. The minor parts were sometimes spectacular, esp. Big & Little Chris and Barry the Baptist.
There are some legitimate complaints about this movie. The big one is that it doesn't really go anywhere or mean anything. It seems like an awful lot of flash and talent to end up saying nothing about anything. But um it's not like Lock, Stock is trying to be anything it isn't, so maybe it's not a valid critique after all. Considering how long Tarrantino's influence has been around, it's a little unfair to call Ritchie on imitating him. There are some similarities  large casts, distinct characters, clever dialogue, rapid shifts in narratives from one string to another and shifting in time, and few other things. I think the problem is that years of dumbing down by Hollywood have almost eliminated all these things. The influence is there certainly, but it would not seem as pronounced if there were any other hugely exposed filmmakers in recent memory that put as much emphasis on dialogue and character besides Tarantino.
I haven't watched MTV since the mid-1980's, so the style of Lock Stock and Snatch didn't seem trite to me. Some people I talked to said that the film style was too much like the average car commercial or pop video, which is getting the influence backwards, but I could see how those associations would spoil the experience.