Friday, April 24, 2009

RocknRolla (2008)--3/5

Guy Ritchie exhibits an incremental maturation in his latest, “RocknRolla.” Ritchie made a stylistic first impression with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,”* successfully returned to the well with “Snatch,” and seemed to fade away after the “Swept Away” fiasco.

Like those first two films, “RocknRolla” follows a few too many MacGuffins through serpentine criminal activities. Also, many of the characters have “whimsical” nicknames. One-Two (Gerard Butler) and Mumbles (Idris Elba) stick up Uri’s accountants. Uri (Karel Roden) owes Lenny (Tom Wilkinson), who’s also owed by One-Two and Mumbles. A valuable and never-seen-from-the-front painting, originally borrowed by Lenny, travels a similarly convoluted path.

The second of two ostentatious stickups has a blithe framing device. A severely beaten One-Two limps into a restaurant to pay off his “finder’s fee.” He has to ask, “Don’t you want to know what happened?” Before we even see one second of it, the chase is entertaining. It involves superhuman Russian warriors, multiple car crashes, a sporting goods store, and an increasingly pathetic chase on train tracks. And it manages to somehow be longer and goofier than expected.

For all the macho posturing and plot calisthenics, “Rocknrolla” manages to sneak in some grounded characterization. This time around, the individual crooks are more than just funny nicknames. At the center of everything is Archie (Mark Strong), narrator of the film and right-hand man to Lenny. Andy Garcia-lookalike Strong doesn’t play Archie to the cheap seats. Instead, he slowly burns brighter, a secret voice of relative sanity and wisdom. Lenny’s comeuppance at the hands of Archie is surprisingly cathartic.


*I prefer the Italian title to the film, “Lock and Stock.”


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