RocknRolla

written & directed by: Guy Ritchie

YES! Guy Ritchie is back. Yeah I know it aint like he's made tons of films but dammit I was wondering if he was just going to sit at home and live off Madonna (well not anymore) but he was in the studio making the awesomeness that is a Guy Ritchie film.

If you've seen Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, or Snatch, you know how seemingly random characters and events coincide to a nice gangster filled fight. If you don't know, then you should be ashamed of yourself and find out as soon as possible. So I will do my best.

Some down in the gutter gangsters "The Wild Bunch" are made of One Two (Gerard Butler), Mumbles (Idris Elba), and Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) want to get in the real estate game in London. The underhand real estate game and a lot of other gangster shit is run by Lenny (Tom Wilkinson) who's right hand man is Archie (Mark Strong). Lenny screws over the Wild Bunch and they end up owing him two mil. Lenny is also working with a Russian gangster who wants to do major developing in town. Lenny's fee is 7 mil to get the project moving along quickly. The Russian get his accountant Stella (Thandie Newton) to get the cash to Lenny. The Russian also lets Lenny borrow his precious lucky painting. Stella is a crooked little lady and calls her buddy One Two to rob the guys carrying the money to Lenny and give her a cut off the top. While the painting is in Lenny's possesion it gets stolen by his degenerate pressumed dead rockstar stepson Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), who is managed by Roman (Ludacris) and Mickey (Jeremy Piven). The Russian thinks theres something awry and demands that his lucky painting is returned, which sends everyone crossing paths and trying to pin down Johnny.

Whew. The movie takes a minute to get going because there are so many characters to deal with. But once it does it kicks ass. I loved Tom Wilkinson as Lenny. He plays an asshole boss gangster pretty well. I dunno who the guy that played Archie is, but you know how the second in command is always cool, calm, and collected. THAT is Archie. He has a patented backhand slap I wish I could try on someone. Gerard Butler is wonderful to look at, but him and the other Wild Bunch guys really seem like grity gangster buddies. And you get to see him do a hillarious dance number. BUT the standout player for me was Johnny Quid. He's a strung out junkie Rocknrolla but he knows his game and he knows it well. Like you wanna hate him cause he's an asshole and unpredictable and just diry, but he's kinda cool at it.

The movie isn't as funny as Ritchie's previous work. Don't get me wrong, it had some laugh out loud bits and the dialogue is great, but its not as quirky funny as the others. It reminds me more of Layer Cake (which happened to be directed by the producer of Lock Stock and Snatch), or Lucky Number Slevin. It's more...character driven than story driven I think. There's flashbacks involved to get more background. That's new for Ritchie. I loved it. Yes I'm partial to British gangsters, but I loved it! It's not as violent either as the others. But it sticks to the Ritchie formula and thats fantastic.