RocknRolla

Lets face it – Tarantino or Scorcese may make arguably the greatest gangster movies - but the combination of British humour and gangster movies is equally irresistible !! For those who aren’t familiar with the director Guy Ritchie – he is the guy who made the iconic Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and the much acclaimed Snatch. However you may recall him more easily given that he is married to Madonna (though only for a few days more).

This movie follows the classic Guy Ritchie formula of a number of crooks and one grand prize. In RocknRolla, the real estate is booming in London and everyone wants a bite out of the real estate pie. Russian millionaire Yuri wants some city permits tweaked for a building project of his – and he gets in touch with Lenny, an old school mobster who has contacts in the city council. The payment to Lenny has to be made in cash and here starts the wild chain of events which involve Yuri’s accountant Stella (and her gay lawyer husband), Lenny’s right hand man Archie (Mark Strong), bunch of small-time crooks called the Wild Bunch – One Two (Gerald Butler), Handsome Bob & Mumbles – and Yuri’s two Russian henchmen. Oh I almost forgot – the recently deceased junkie rock’n’roll star Johnny Quid & his managers Micky and Roman.

If this sounds too much to you, well in a way it is. The only flaw in the movie is that it has couple of characters too many. The first half of the movie is spent introducing the characters – and with so many of them, the going is a trifle slow. But the scenes are interspersed with some superb British humour in their trademark cockney accents. The look of the movie is similar to gangster flicks – dark, grimy but stylish – and the dialogues are sharp & witty. Oh and the characters themselves - the goofy thug Gerald Butler, the deadpan Mark Strong and the weird accountant Thandie Newton are a delight. (Wife insists Gerald Butler’s acting had more than traces of George Clooney)

Johnny Quid is the dark horse in the movie, composing music while hopelessly stoned, and spouting some arbit philosophy, yet capable of destructive violence – which partly explains the title of the movie. And the linchpin of the movie is a ‘lucky’ painting of Yuri, which intriguingly, is always shown from the back – you never get to know how the painting looks.

There are so many great moments in the movie – the best being the robbery sequence with the two Russian strongmen - the scene was friggin hilarious. ‘Archie slap’ and Gerald Butler’s slow dance are other scenes which will make you grin much after you have exited the movie. Camerawork is great and the music, while not very impactful in the beginning, is definitely rocking in the finale. The finale brings all the characters together with some hilarious co-incidences and ties out all the loose ends.

Combination of wise-cracking wacky gangsters and even wackier russian gangsters in sitcom-like situation makes one hell of a cool movie. So if you like your gangster movies, then this is definitely the movie for you. And if you haven’t watched anything in this genre, you couldn’t have asked for a better introduction.