Stylish, wicked fun - with Cockneys

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2002)

At first glance, one might think that Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels - the debut film from the man later to be known as Mr. Madonna, Guy Ritchie - is little more than another in a long line of late-nineties Tarantino ripoffs. And again, at first glance, you might be right. There are the camera tricks, the hip sixties soundtrack filled out with James Brown soul classics, the slew of crimes gone wrong, and a collection of characters with goofy names like Hatchet Harry and Barry the Baptist.
But that's the first glance, and as the old adage goes, first impressions can be deceiving. What Ritchie has done is craft a film out of familiar subjects (a failed gambling risk, a harried deadline to pay off a debt, and a desperate gambit involving guns, drugs, and cash), and weave together a stylish, entertaining film.
Overloaded with characters of dubious moralities, Lock Stock throws everything but the kitchen sink into the lives of four friends who have spent their lives skirting the edges of the law. These four gather together $100,000 for Eddie, the card shark, to enter a high-stakes poker game. Of course, the game is rigged, and he ends up owing half-a-million quid to Hatchet Harry - a man you pay, or face the consequences. Lo and behold, an opportunity arises - the lads' neighbors are drug fences who knock over a marijuana dealer for cash and weed, and this could well answer all their prayers. Of course, nothing quite works out the way anyone could expect.
Due to everyone having thick British accents and making full use of the unique styles of Cockney slang (explained in a glossary on the DVD as a special feature), Lock Stock can sometimes be a difficult movie to follow, though once you get used to it, there are some gems of dialogue rolling through all the action. Think Trainspotting with less drugs and more violence.
The cast (mostly unknowns at the time), does a fine job of settling into the theme of the film - near-cartoonish posturing and constant games of king of the mountain populate almost every scene. Sting pops up as Eddie's none-too-enchanted father, who redefines tough love, and soccer star Vinnie Jones is an effectively erudite brute as Big Chris, the 'collection agent' for Harry. His departing line, 'It's been emotional,' is a classic.
It's not original, not by any real stretch, and not terribly groundbreaking other than some of the unusual camera tricks Ritchie pulls off (my personal favorites being the poker scene and the 'get drunk after the big score' scene) - which are very much like music videos in style. That said, there's nothing that keeps it from being a rollicking good time of a movie, something that's well worth watching again. If only to figure out what those geezers are saying.