RocknRolla

RocknRolla looks and sounds like a lame imitation of a Guy Ritchie film, something which would hardly be of note except  for the fact that it was written and directed by Ritchie himself. Ritchie’s Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) were characterized by clever plotting, marvellously over-the-top characters, zestily potty-mouthed dialogue and expertly staged action. He then re-visited the formula with Revolver (2005) but muddled it with a lot of deflationary psychologising and sub-par plotting. Taking yet another step in the same downward direction all that is left to RocknRolla is the bad language. Everything else about the film falls well short of its illustrious predecessors.

Who, you may well ask, in their right mind would cast Tom Wilkinson as a thuggish London crime boss? Crime boss yes, but thug no.  He’s about as scary as a school headmaster although he is only the most ill-suited of a cast that includes Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy and a gaggle of other players who barely reach 2.5 on the energy scale.

The film lurches its way through a tired plot about villains double-crossing other villains that recycles Ritchie’s signature touches such as rapid fire editing (notably in one successful scene in which Butler and Newton’s character have sex) and fast exchanges of dialogue with a complete lack of inspiration (a McGuffin of a stolen painting functions somewhat like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) but it is an overworked device). 

Remarkably, the film sets itself up for a sequel but that is never going to happen.

 

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