RocknRolla

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Director: Guy Ritchie

Stars: Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Tom Wilkinson, Jeremy Piven, Mark Strong

Year: 2008 Running Time: 114 mins Rating:

Guy Ritchie recaptures some of the geezerish glories of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with this yarn incorporating Russian mafia, old school cockney gangsters and low-life crimmos out of their depth. Tom Wilkinson is the mobster throwback and Gerard Butler the wannabe kingpin who owes him big time. However, it's Mark Strong as Wilkinson's careworn henchman who steals the show with a clinical performance of wit and Rolex-accurate timing.

Review

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 - when compared with slick US offerings such as Shoot 'Em Up or Lucky Number Slevin, appears the drearily homophobic work of a sniggering schoolboy ably assisted by Jim Davidson.

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 (a wearying Ritchie staple) 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.

DVD REVIEW:
RRP: £19.56 (DVD), £26.42 (Blu-ray)

RocknRolla is a movie of top league movers and shakers, from crime kingpins to Russian oligarchs, so it’s a surprise the DVD is something of a cheeky market trader.

On the standard DVD the eight minute featurette “Guy’s Town” focuses on the different locations Ritchie used, including Battersea Power Station, Royal Chelsea Hospital and the-then almost finished Wembley Stadium.

Following the world economic meltdown a certain schadenfreude accompanies this short piece as Ritchie discusses rocketing property prices, patting himself on the back for snapping up some of it.

A deleted scene primes the Gerard Butler’s fine bit of sprinting in the movie’s heist centrepiece, but was wisely excised from a film that already runs long at just shy of two hours.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray disc is a fifteen minute featurette “Blokes, Birds, and Backhanders: Inside RocknRolla” that has some interview overlap with “Guy’s Town” and fizzles with the usual mutual love-in.

So, it all rests on the Guy Ritchie and Mark Strong commentary, available on both DVD and Blu-ray.

And for a film that loves the sound of its dialogue, the day is saved by the talk track.

Strong raises the economic meltdown early on, but Ritchie downplays the fact his film’s story has become dated within the year it was made.

There is also chat about the upcoming Sherlock Holmes, and it is easy to slip into the convivial rhythm of the commentary, with Ritchie and Strong clearly having a good time.

And, when it gets into the nuts-and-bolts of filmmaking – green screen versus low-loaders for shooting in cars, mocking up Central London in a tent in Battersea Power Station – it is clear the much-derided mockney director knows his f.stop from his focal length.

Not the crown jewels of a DVD package then, but worth it for the chatter track.