One of the best of its kind in a crowded market

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2001)

We all know there are too many "stylish" gangster films out there, but this is one of the good ones. It's easy enough to spot the bad ones:
(1) A bad gangster film has insipid characters who are supposed to be interesting simply because they break the law - like the boring guy at a party who natters away endlessly about his magazine distribution company, who thinks the subject will become fascinating when he adds that he's worked out how to avoid paying tax.
(2) A bad gangster film is terrified, utterly terrified, that its lawbreaking characters won't look cool enough. It doesn't dare let them do anything that might come across as dorky. Look at "The Limey" or the recent "Shaft", and tell me that this fear of being uncool isn't stifling. (By contrast, the gangsters in "Pulp Fiction" are given the chance to make complete fools of themselves ... and maybe, in some people's eyes, they do; but at least they don't come across as insufferable posers.)
The gangsters in "Snatch" are varied, fascinating, and (in most cases) positively goofy. Some of them are cartoons, but with a substratum of reality, and Ritchie, like Charles Dickens, wisely arranges things so that the cartoonish aspects of different characters are not allowed to get in each other's way. These are INSPIRED cartoons - Brad Pitt's incomprehenisble, cunning-as-a-rat gypsy being the most inspired of all.