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.
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.
Tim Evans