RocknRolla

There was a time when Guy Ritchie was a stud in the movie world. Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrels and Snatch are widely held as terrific post modern films. He has always managed to capture a unique visual flair that fit the crazy version of the world he was creating. Then he married Madonna and made Swept away, which was terrible and then did not do anything for a few years. last year he returned to the crazy world of drugs, power and money with Revolver, but it was a massive misfire. Well the public divorce of the once power couple, has brought Guy Ritchie back with another movie in the world of mobs, power, drugs and... a painting?

I will attempt to do my best in recapping the movie, but I do not have an ability to take notes, so I may get lost. Mr. One,Two(Gerard Butler) and Mumbles(Idris Elba) lost money received from a loan Shark, Lenny Cole(Tom Wilkinson) in a real estate scam and need to get it back to him. Lenny believes he owns London's underworld and real estate scamming business and the Russians want in bed with Lenny. As a show of faith, the head Russian gives Lenny his lucky painting. The Russian calls his accountant to get 7 million Euros. The accountant, Stella(Thandie Newton), in turn tells Mr. One,Two where to find the 7 million Euros. One,Two and Mumbles jack the money and pay back Lenny, but now the Russians cannot complete their deal with Lenny. While all of this is going on, the painting is stolen. Lenny believes his step-son, Johnny stole it and now he has sent his second in command, Archie(Mark Strong) to look for it. Archie muslces Roman and Mickey(Ludacris and Jeremy Piven) to find it. Johnny then loses the painting himself. One,Two and Mumbles get a chance to jack another 7 million Euro exchange, but this time it is not as easy. On the side there are also plots involving a police informant and even a brief homosexual side plot.

If that seems like an awful lot to take in. It is. However, RocknRolla is also incredibly entertaining and uniquely made. Guy Ritchie uses all kinds of neat tricks to tell this story including subtitles (while two people talk over music) nice lighting effects, great musical cues, nonsensical flashbacks and all kinds of varying degrees of extreme closeups and other camera tricks, including some great use of the shaky camera. Ritchie obviously decided to throw it all in the mix to see what he could create and it is all very effective. I may not have explained the movie very well, but when it is over it all becomes pretty damn clear. Ritchie stages a wonderful climax with all of the main and supporting characters that features some great gun play and wonderful dialog. Every single actor plays their individual roles perfectly, but a few stand outs are Tom Wilkinson, Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton and Mark Strong. Wilkinson is often in deeply dramatic films and he is obviously having a blast as a deep cockney accented wannabe gangster. Mark Strong continues to impress me and he looks fantastic in his sharp suits. Newton and Butler have a smolderingly sexy chemistry and Newton so scorching I was waiting for the screen to catch fire.

Ritchie's use of the voice-over narration is very effective because it is Strong's Archie who is doing it. He is connected to all of the stories, but not the main focus of them all, so we trust him because we do not think he has any reason to lie to us. Then in the movie there are a few monologues, one bordering on brilliant as Johnny attempts to explain his obsession with the painting while he plays the piano as that visual is cross cut with the visual of a man being beaten. Then there is a monologue from a totally side character about Johnny's drug habit that is very effective as it slows everything down, halting the action but pointing out how alluring and traumatizing drugs can be.

The term RocknRolla is summed up in the movie as someone who wants "The Whole fucking lot." Being a RocknRolla is not about drugs or sex or money, or power. It is about having a bit of all of it. A real RocknRolla is cultured and appreciates art. he is articulate, but vicious. He drinks tea while he tortures you and he looks damn good doing it. Ritchie finds his footing again in this crazy version of London. He has a hyper-visual style that matches the frenetically paced action sequences (the extended second robbery scene is a flash of genius, if you ask me) and the whole movie is wrapped in this coating of sexual fun, without it actually being very sexual at all. It is a movie that makes you wish you could be that much of a RocknRolla. The kinetic energy bursts off of the screen with its fits of comedy and violence and I wish to hell I could look as good in a suit as Mark Strong.

Final Grade: A