Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels


This film, that can with some doubt enter under the title of my column, has been released with no hype, no books by famous former drug addicts, no following. It has a lot in common with Coen brothers, some resemblance to Jeunet and Caro and some to British detective novel and much like Hitchcock.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a comedy by Guy Ritchie about a group of four guys that put together #100,000 into the stake of a card game played by one of them. The card game is being rigged so they end up owing half a million pounds to a porn entrepreneur and mafia boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty) who gives them seven days to pay before they start losing their fingers and an option to take his dad's (Sting) bar to settle the debt.

As they look for the way to get the money, they stumble across their neighbour's idea to rob some drug dealers/addicts, the people with a rain forest of marijuana in their apartment. Vinny Jones plays Big Chris, a goon hired by Harry, but Big Chris cannot stand swearing since he takes his son, Little Chris to every task that he is on. The other Harry's goon is Barry the Baptist (Lenny Maclean), named so because he likes to drown his victims looking for co-operation. There is a tremendous amount of violence implied in this film, but very little of it is actually shown.

The film is composed as a series of visual jokes, great acting and well written script. Casting job has been performed impeccably, giving each character a perfect face to go with it, even though it meant sometimes making it somewhat as if it just came from a cartoon about London low-life.

In some interview, producer Matthew Vaughn stated that the success of the film has a lot to do with the fact that it is somewhat biographical and Ritchie owed to be truly expressed. It is its sense of outrageness and its introduction to a new story and a new character every two minutes that makes this film a very enjoyable experience.

The copyright of the article Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in Art Cinema is owned by Andrej Ristic. Permission to republish Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic