You could be forgiven for thinking that Guy Ritchie's trouble and strife was not Madonna... but his freefalling directorial arc after the success of Lock, Stock.
The follow-up - Snatch - was a half decent affair but Swept Away, starring her indoors, was a turkey of Bernard Matthews proportions that almost stuffed his career.
Almost. But not quite. Rumour has it there is an isolated core of dust-coated cinemagoers hunched in the darker corners of cinemas still trying to work out the plot of pretentious follow-up Revolver.
So it is with a weight of expectation that Ritchie returns to the familiar territory of contemporary London and the labyrinthine underworld of mockney gangsters plotting leaky super-scams.
Gerard Butler plays small-time crook One Two, an underachieving opportunist whose dodgy docklands property deal lands him in hock to Tom Wilkinson's traditional East End mobster Lenny Cole.
Lenny, meanwhile, is courting millionaire Russian oligarch and Abromovich clone Uri Obomavich (Urban) while Thandie Newton is the ice-cool accountant who keeps iffy cash transactions fluid.
This is about as groundbreaking as the crowning of a Pearly King but Ritchie keeps things ticking along nicely, helped in no small measure by a diamond-sharp cast, nifty editing and the innovative use of capital locations, including the new Wembley.
On the downside, the script regrettably can't resist a few homophobic jibes more at home in a Jim Davidson routine.
Where it does score - and score highly - is the sublime performance of Mark Strong as Lenny's world-weary enforcer Archie and Nonso Anozie as Tank, tout supremo and fan of period drama and the paintings of Whistler.
The introduction of Lenny's stoner punk rocker stepson and pocket philosopher is left a bit late but the nicely-engineered denouement is as satisfying as half a pint of whelks.
Rocknrolla may not be the real thing…but it's the closest Ritchie's been in an age.
Tim Evans
