Save your breath for cooling your porridge...

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2012)

A diamond of prodigious size is stolen from Antwerp by an American thief. En route back to New York, he takes a detour in London, at the suggestion of a treacherous partner, who sets the thief up with his cousin
He hires incompetent thieves to retrieve the diamond from a bookies, where the thief went to place a bet. The bookies belongs to Brick Top, a local underworld kingpin who runs illegal fights.
In his fights, a fighter is being staged by two boxing promoters, Turkish and his partner Tommy. Turkish decides to improve his office a little bit, and sends Tommy to a gypsy campsite to buy a caravan.
The boxer is knocked out at the campsite, and Turkish decides to replace the boxer with Mickey, the gypsy leader, which sets off a chain of events involving wild gypsies, phenomenally stupid thugs, hapless boxing promoters, immortal Russian arms dealers and... a stray dog.
There are reasons to love and hate this movie. The cast is phenomenal, and not one characters takes centre stage. The writing is great and Ritchie and Vaughn integrate all the mini plots into one satisfying conclusion.
The downside though is this. Ritchie garnered so many imitators in the two years between this and Lock, Stock... That it was already becoming tiresome. And with the exception of 'Circus' , these imitators of the Ritchie look, we're very bad indeed.
And even though the writing is good, sometimes it just feels too smug and big headed for it's own good, especially when Ford and Jones are spouting lines.
It's still enjoyable to watch, but now that the Ritchie love in has long gone from the British eye, it's not as good as everyone thought it was.