British Crime Goes From Rags to Ritchie's "Snatch"

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2008)

Although they don't produce as many gangster movies as we Americans, the British know how to make some proper, first-rate, sure-fire crime thrillers. Movies such as "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951), "The League of Gentlemen" (1960), "Robbery" (1967), "The Italian Job" (1969), "Get Carter" (1971), "Sitting Target" (1972), "McVicar" (1980), "The Long Good Friday" (1981), "Buster" (1988), and "The Krays" (1990) exemplify the upper tier of British crime cinema.
This sub-genre of crime movies has not been tampered with until recently when an unknown helmer of rock videos and commercials made his first feature in 1995 called "Hard Case." Since then he has crafted the two of the best British crime thrillers in years and rekindled interest in the sub-genre with imitators mimicking his work. Were it not for his marriage to music diva Madonna, we'd probably not be sampling his latest effort in the theaters but waiting for it to appear on the video rental shelves. Guy Ritchie is his name, and Ritchie is rapidly becoming the Francis Ford Coppola of mobster movies in English. (Unfortunately, Ritchie's latest endeavor "Revolver" didn't fare well enough in its theatrical run or with the critics to follow up his previous hits.) Ritchie, who helmed the downright gritty, raucously violent, but thoroughly entertaining gangster epic "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," pounds the mean streets of London once again with his quirky crime comedy "Snatch." Starring Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro, Rade Sherbedzija, Vinnie Jones, and Dennis Farina, this splendidly-lensed, ballistically-edited, multi-plotted British mobster saga boasts elements of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas," David Fincher's "Fight Club," George Roy Hill's "The Sting," and Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy." While "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" detailed the theft of two antique shotguns and the myriad hands through which the guns passed along with a rigged high stakes poker game, "Snatch" chronicles a diamond heist and the thuggish throng out to nab it as well as unlicensed underground boxing matches. Indeed, while both movies appear roughly similar in plot convolutions and revelations, even sharing cast members Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones, "Snatch" surpasses "LS&TSB" with its "Sting" ending. People that don't like Brad Pitt but enjoyed "Fight Club" will find "Snatch" just as rewarding a movie, too. Like "LS&TSB," the real star of "Snatch" is writer & director Guy Ritchie. He blends comedy and crime without compromising on morality. Bad people pay the piper in this movie, and the consequences of crime are never given the short shrift. Nevertheless, Ritchie has the gift of conjuring comedy in the most unsavory situations. Whether he shows us a dog that chomps a squeaky toy and squeaks afterward with every breath it draws or a fat getaway car driver that can barely squeeze into and out of a small automobile, Ritchie knows how to tweak the formula at the appropriate time and place.
"Snatch" opens with our reluctant hero, Turkish (Jason Statham), narrating his tale of woe about how his partner Tommy (Stephen Graham) and he have mired themselves in the mother of all messes. Everything starts when Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) and his gang hold up an Antwerp jeweler and steal an 84-carat stone for his boss, Avi (Dennis Farina of "Get Shorty"), who is sweating it out back in New York City. Franky lays over in London, meets Russian racketeer Boris the Blade (Rade Sherbedzija) who supplies him with a gun free of charge if Franky will place an illegal boxing bet for him. Eventually, an alarmed Avi freaks out when Franky doesn't show up. Avi contacts his jeweler cousin, Dog the Head (Mike Reid), about Franky's gambling addiction and jumps on a jet for England. Meanwhile, Boris hires two inept black pawnshop dealers, Vinny (Robbie Gee) and Sol (Lennie James), to mug Franky and rip-off the rock. Their botched attempt at sticking up a bookie's secret betting joint will have you slapping your knees and laughing out loud. They wind up kidnapping Franky because they cannot break the chain on the attaché case cuffed to his wrist. The action shifts gears back to Turkish. He dispatches Tommy to buy a caravan to replace the dilapidated trailer that serves as headquarters for his boxing enterprises. Poor Tommy gets taken for everything by a band of Irish gypsies led by Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith") who decks Turkish's new boxing champ, Gorgeous George (Adam Fogerty), with one devastating right hook when he challenges Mickey.
"Snatch" whirls giddily around in so many circles that you almost get dizzy keeping up with its characters that randomly pop in and out of the action. Turkish and Tommy find themselves in deep trouble now because they cut a deal with a crooked boxing promoter, Brick Top (Alan Ford, looking like a maniacal Austin Powers), to have George take a dive in the upcoming fight. Mickey agrees to replace Gorgeous, but George refuses to throw the fight. Anybody that double-crosses ruthless Brick Top can count on not only suffering a horrible death but having their hack-up remains vanish into the feed troughs at Brick Top's man-eating swine farm. Brick Top outlines a frightening but funny scenario about how to dispose of corpses at pig farms, explaining at one point that "a pig can go through bones like butter." The dialogue here is not nearly as incomprehensible as it was in "LS&TSB," except for Pitt's babbling character. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Farina scoring well as the best of the bunch as the New York diamond fence. Before this hilariously funny, extremely-profane, fast-paced fracas fades out, the dexterous Ritchie has ushered audiences on another surprise-laden, whirlwind excursion through an underworld as loony as it is lethal. "Snatch" is a top-notch comic caper worth catching.