A Highly Entertaining Film

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2002)

Snatch, written and directed by Guy Ritchie is an unusual yet highly amusing and entertaining British film. It is a story full of twists and turns about an 86-karat diamond and how an assortment of very different criminals get pulled together and played off against one another as they try to get their hands on it. The film has several subplots but the strands of the story are expertly woven together into an exciting climax.
The editing is superb and has a very similar style as Guy Ritchie's previous film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The film uses unusual camera angles and strange shots and unconventional lighting to give the viewer insight into the emotions of the character at that particular time. Snatch has a similar gritty, bleached-out colour as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels had, but Snatch definitely has more to offer in the way of special effects and slow-motion scenes. The slow-motion in various action scenes adds a great deal to the film by wrenching the audiences out of fast action and making them hold their breath and think until the slow-motion clip ends. This adds greatly to the suspense of the film. Every cinema going person will notice the effect the slow-motion has on them as they see the rabbit hunting and finale scenes. The film's music adds greatly to its entertainment value and along with unconventional camera angles and superb acting the music makes scenes such as the knockout of Gorgeous George highly amusing.
Snatch has a Pulp Fiction style in the way the story jumps from the past to the future and then back to the past again to explain an event that had just happened. This jumping around keeps the audience on its toes and is easy enough to understand, but a word of warning though: if you miss a minute or two you may find it very difficult to understand what's going on in the film.
The character development of this film is masterful, the larger than life characters are interesting, amusing and very well played by the talented cast. The dialogue is intelligent and funny in a dry British sort of way. The film contains many superb performances from impressive actors such as Vinnie Jones as 'Bullet Tooth Tony', Brad Pitt as the incomprehensible gypsy 'Mickey O'Neil', Jason Statham who both narrates much of the film and plays the character 'Turkish' proves he is an excellent actor, Alan Ford as the detestable 'Brick Top Polford', and Rade Serbedzija who plays the amusing 'Boris the Blade'. Other actors include Benicio Del Toro and Dennis Farina who also put in good efforts.
This film is not perfect though. Some people would attribute this films success to its flashiness, and this is true to a point, but without this flashiness the film would definitely be bland and maybe too much like any Hollywood offering. Some people complain that the film 'borrows' many elements of its plot and style from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This is true, but in my opinion this hardly detracts much from the film as a whole.
Overall despite some minor flaws this film is well made, entertaining and most definately worth seeing. If you keep an open mind when watching this film and don't take it too seriously you will almost certainly enjoy it. I give it 8 out of 10.