A comedy of violent errors

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2017)

Friends Eddy, Tom, Soap, and Bacon are four small time crooks who have cobbled together £100,000 to enter a high stakes card game which they think will be easy; they don't realise it is rigged so afterwards they are left owing 'Hatchet' Harry Lonsdale half a million pounds and they only have a week to get it. By coincidence they live next door to some far more serious gangsters and over hear their plan to take money and cannabis off a bunch of ex-public school dope growers the boys decide to take the proceeds from these thieves. To do that the need guns so buy a couple of antique shotguns from a contact who got them from a couple of Scousers who'd committed a burglary for Hatchet Harry not knowing the guns were the real target of their job. When the jobs start happening things get bloody fast and the body count rapidly climbs.
This, director Guy Richie's film debut, impressively intertwines several plot strands with a large cast of varied underworld types without getting confusing. There are plenty of exciting moments, a lot of violence and a good number of laughs. Sometimes all happening at once such as when a group of hardened criminals armed with shotguns and a Bren gun are pinned down by three posh boys armed with an air rifle! The film looks good with its slight sepia tint and the way it never needs to visit 'tourist London'. The dialogue is sharp and witty, although some may be confused by the slang at times! The characters are solid; all the main characters may be criminals but many of them are still likable, especially the four protagonists. Jason Statham, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran and Jason Flemyng impress as Bacon, Soap, Eddy and Tom and the rest of the cast are solid too; the most notable of these is probably ex-footballer Vinnie Jones who proves that he can act rather than just being an example of novelty casting. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a mixture of violence and wit.