Arguably 10 stars, but I'm getting older

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2019)

I saw "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" when it first came out and thought it was one of the best movies I'd ever seen. To this day, if you were going to sit down and compose a list of the all-time best British gangster movies (and, I think, the British indisputably make the best gangster movies), this film would still rank somewhere near the top. The plot is twisty, clever, witty and chock-a-block with strangely compelling eccentric psychopaths. The production values are slick, but obviously intentionally filmed in a grimy-lens sort of manner, which very effectively captures the story's underworld atmosphere. This film also jump-started the career of a few actors in this film, most notably Jason Statham.
You know how people say, "It's not you, it's me", well, that's how I feel about this film 20 years later. As for many of us, life can be a bit tough over a 20-year time span, and this film doesn't possess one single sympathetic character. I'm not exaggerating. Not even a single teeny-tiny one (that's kind of an inside joke you'll get after watching this movie). By the time I reached the credits, I had lost complete interest in who was still living. Being a guy, I absolutely hate the phrase "toxic masculinity", but I think that the "bros" completely populating and dominating this entire film represent those who today's aggravatingly condescending "woke" prudes are perpetually hectoring the rest of us about. (This movie had absolutely no female characters of any substance, which doesn't seem unusual to me for a Guy Richie production.)
So it all kind of depends on what you're looking for. If you want to kick back and watch a classic British gangster film, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" remains somewhere near the top of the list, but just don't be expecting any feelings of emotional involvement, unless, I suppose, you're a psychopath, but then you wouldn't be feeling anything anyway. Still, I'm sure that this movie is just what the doctor ordered for an awful lot of people, and, sadly, I must confess to getting some guilty pleasure out of it. (Not sure why I'm confessing, since I'm not even Catholic.)