Reservoir Shaggy-Dogs...

Rating: 7/10 (14 June 2017)

"Snatch.": the tale of a stolen diamond, unlicensed boxing games, a promoter with the most peculiar hobby consisting on feeding his pigs with his enemies or debtors, and Irish travelers with caravans and accents as impenetrable as the plot that tries to tie all these elements together.
Oh, did I forget there's also a little dog that can swallow everything, from a squeaking toy to... a more valuable item. Well, I think this dog is the living metaphor of whatever Guy Ritchie expect from us, viewers: to swallow anything, as long as it is funny. In fact, the film is quite funny, with a few outbursts of sheer comedic genius, but it's not as easily digestible as Ritchie's 1998 hit: "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels".
Guy Ritchie has been accused of exercising in style with his second film, but he could also give the Hitchcock answer about style being only another name for self-plagiarism. And he wouldn't be totally wrong because "Snatch." can be looked as a plagiarism in tone and story structure of his 1998 hit film, same assortment of characters with colorful nicknames, same intertwined plots, same use of frenetic editing, slow, fast or stop motions, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Tom Ford reprising different roles and a screenplay loaded of one-liners, quirks and wisecracks, though not as memorable as the first.So accusing Ritchie of the whole "style over substance" isn't just pointless, it's unfair in the way he didn't attend to do anything substantial, his "Snatch." Is as much a joke as "Lock Stock".
But he can't get away with this argument either, not totally. I saw the movie again and found myself amused most of the time, but never really riveted to the point that I would miss nothing from the film. It's like the style of Ritchie didn't allow the movie to bloom by itself, everything was more an excuse for a few throwaway gags and the character were only the foils of a deliriously intricate plot. A comedy where the focus is the story can afford slower moments, in the case of Ritchie's movies, it depends on who's on the screen and on that level, there are three characters steal the show.
Vinnie Jones, as Bullet Tooth Tony, provides a monologue that almost equals Dirty Harry's description of a Magnum, and with the same intimidating effect, Tom Ford as the nasty-looking bespectacled Brick Top is quite convincing as someone to make you curse your mother for giving you birth if you ever owed his money and Brad Pitt overplays his mumbling accent as if he was conscious that the whole thing didn't even need to be clear, a stunt that reminded me of Benicio Del Toro in "The Usual Suspects". That his 'Mickey' would make an accent worst than the cockney slang they used is a great running gag by itself, that with his extraordinary punching skills. Not to mention that Brad Pitt looked great, and you could tell, he still had the 'Fight Club' look.
Benicio Del Toro is another asset of the film, making a hilarious entrance as a pseudo Rabbi with an interesting lecture about the Virgin Mary... wait a minute, black-clad men walking together talking about 'Virgin'? A feeling of déjà-vu deepens. Anyway, Del Toro was great as Frank Four Fingers but wasted too soon. I guess he had to work for the movie that would earn him the Oscar the same year, the more serious "Traffic". The film has so many great and inventive characters, Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina) or Boris the Blade that not all of them have a real shining moment. Even Statham who has such amazing lines as "Turkish" in his first scenes becomes the passive observer he was in "Lock". Characters seem like the rather interchangeable elements of a plot too sophisticated for its own good. Even the build-up with unlicensed boxing games doesn't lead to a really satisfying resolution.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film for the most part of it, but thinking about it again, I'm wondering if it's not the sort of experience you can have as well by watching the best parts on Youtube. Ritchie rearranges all the moments like many clips of a parody series, and while it worked in "Lock, Stock" because it had a common thread, a major story-line... even the seemingly disjointed "Reservoir Dogs" had a plot.
In "Snatch.", everyone is important enough for the story but not enough so that we care, it's funny and entertaining, but the film lacks structure. It is possible that Ritchie wanted to replicate his formula, with an all-American cast, and that was enough a novelty but maybe the detractors wished it was less than a replica, and more a Desert-Point-Eagle-type of film.