Arnaques, combines et botanique

I'm not sure whether to call this a black comedy or a comedy-noir. The story is about four working class lads who have each managed to save up 25,000 pounds to spot their card-shark friend for a high-stakes poker game with "Hatchet" Harry, the local gangster.

Unfortunately, Harry's game is rigged and the four end up owing Harry half a million pounds, with just one week to come up with the cash. What ensues is a set of schemes, counter-schemes, rip-offs, and bad/good luck that demand you pay attention. On several occasions I had to pause the video just to take stock of which gang was planning what.

The final thirty minutes of the film, as the plots all collide and overlap, turn set-piece shoot outs into comedic punchlines. The comedy is driven by exploding our expectations of what are otherwise pretty standard scenes from the film-noir genre.

The acting is strong and the script very tight. Although I am not normally a fan of voice overs, this one informs without spoiling the action. And I liked the use of the slow-motion to disrupt the action and keep me paying attention.

While this film may not be for everyone, if you enjoy a darker pallette, this may be right up your alley.

Best comedy in years, friend turned me on to this hilarious comedy of errors and glad she did. The film is damn near flawless, forces you to pay attention to the twists and turns through it's witty dialogue. Wonderfully photographed with brilliant camerawork but not overdone. Worth several sittings and we could learn alot in Hollywood from this one....

If this film had been dubbed for American viewers, (even if it would have lost the magic of the cockney accent), not one person from the States would have said this wasn't a really good film. I didn't even understand most of the dialogues, but the weirdness of the characters and of what they did was really funny. Not hysterically funny, but Funny! The mixture of comedy and violence was the thing that most amused me. The story itself isn't of the most original, but surely efficacious. The photography and the soundtrack were also brilliant and to finish, I saw Pulp Fiction, I loved it, but after seeing LS&2SM I was too busy thinking over and over how much I liked it for noticing a whatsoever similarity with PF. 10 out of 10 is a bit too much… but 9/10 definitely isn't! Watch it!

Guy Ritchie has a skill: the skill to take multi-layered gangster plots, weave them together, and come out with a fabric of the finest quality. I first watched "Snatch", which came after this film. Loved it. Watch this film, which had a similar set-up (the interwoven gangster theme). Loved it. As far as I'm concerned, if Ritchie can maintain this level of creativity, he can keep on making these films until the end of time. His characters are so well scripted and the actors so well chosen, there is a three-dimensional quality to this film, as if you can almost taste the sulfur in the shotgun blasts.

To describe the plot is difficult, unless we choose one character as the hero and the rest as the anti-heroes... but that's hard to do. While certain people seem to be on our side, they're all equally involved in the plot. Kids playing poker, a porn king who cheats at cards, Big Chris the hired thug, the stereotyped black ganja dealer, Barry the Baptist... all great characters.

Another aspect of Ritchie's films is that instead of good vs. evil, he offers us bad versus evil. All the characters do bad things: steal, drink, smoke dope and kill if necessary. But some are simply "bad" (people who would be morally upright in a different setting) and others are "evil" (no moral code at all, black all the way to the core of their heart). This almost non-dichotomy is probably not unique to Ritchie, but is something he excels in. Highest possible recommendation, you nonce!

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is about four London class act stiffs who put their money to a test in a card game until things end up horribly wrong as they owe half a million pounds within a week to come up with the cash. The movie is by all means, enjoyable. The characters are all likable and their sense of humour makes the movie tick up a notch. I found myself laughing a couple times in the film to the jokes. All the actors played their parts pretty well, but my favorite character of the film had to go to Big Chris as Vinnie Jones. He was the most entertaining and how he was always correcting his son if he ever made any mistakes was priceless. The dialogue was really well done by Guy Ritchie, as well as his directing. What I noticed about the movie, was how much it was alike to the 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs. Lock, Stock had colorful characters, robbery that ends up bad, unexpected tragedies, good screenplay as well as directing by one person, and a good sense of humour. All those resemble to Reservoir Dogs, it's not even funny. Overall, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a good and entertaining comedy/crime film that shows a good future to Guy Ritchie aka "The Next Quentin Tarantino", to many. Although it's not up to par with Reservoir Dogs, I still enjoyed it and will be paying a lot of attention to Guy Ritchie's films. I recommend it.

Hedeen's Outlook: 8/10 *** B