'Snatch'

If a movie could have ADD, Snatch would be it. An eye popping, furiously-paced melange of graphics, jump cuts and freeze-frames, it's a black-humored (very black-humored) look at the underside of London, as experienced by an exotic band of thugs, promoters, thieves, gypies and hustlers. Warning: Plot is discussed but nothing is given away. Please add your own reviews, as usual.

Snatch is a wild, British version of Dick Tracy meets MTV.

People have names like "Bullet Tooth Tony," "Boris the Blade," "Brick Top" and "Franky Four Fingers." Shots get repeated; scenes are shown from different angles with different colored filters; characters whiz through so quickly it's impossible to keep track of them. It's not really clear whether Guy Ritchie (otherwise known as Madonna's new hubby) is going tongue-in-cheek all the way, aiming for a live cartoon, is giving us the bird, or if he's trying to slip in a serious or coherent movie between the rapid rat-a-tat of graphics, flashbacks, jerky, hand-held camera work and freeze-frames.

The so-called underside of London, also the setting of Ritchie's debut feature, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, has become his directorial turf.

Seedy characters abound -- mumbling, scamming Gypsies, surly bookies, shady boxing promoter, gun dealers, thieving jewel merchants (Dennis Farina) -- all tangled in the complex plot that starts with the theft of a humungus stolen diamond and ends up see-sawing all over. Brad Pitt plays an incoherent Gypsy fighter and Benicio Del Toro a ne'er-do-well courier.

Definitely a hoot, the movie is also a bit disengaging, almost disorienting. You can't possibly know or care much about anybody in it, since nobody is onscreen for longer than a few seconds at any given stretch. And there's a big cast. The movie speeds past so quickly, shot in so self-consciously and intrusive (and fascinating, sometimes) a way, that the audience can end up feeling detached. Even the bitingly funny parts whiz by in a blur, and the humor here is beyond black, as in killing people in especially horrible ways.

Alan Ford nearly steals the movie, playing the joyously ferocious, all-purpose monster/gangster Brick Top, whose passion is chopping up his victims and feeding them to the pigs in "six pieces." If he's telling the truth about pigs' eating habits, then it's really foolish to dispose of bodies any other way.

The problem with Snatch is that for all the great acting, bravura cinematography and atmospheric British grunginess (there's a whiff or two of Trainspotting here), it explodes rather than unfolds, and it keeps on exploding for 105 minutes. It's dizzying, not boring -- and it's often very entertaining -- but sadly, it doesn't stick; an hour after leaving the theater, it's hard to remember it at all.

Comments

British Review

[Sirch]

This film was in Britain about 4/5 months ago. I went to see it, having seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels about a month before.

With Lock, Stock still relatively fresh in my mind ("Chill, Winstaaan"), I felt that the plots were the same - something gets stolen, everyone wants the same thing, it ends up in the hands of the characters that you want it to in the end, and it all works out. Forgive the mathematical analogy, but it's like the plots of both oscillate around the same, straight line.

The intelligence, and humour of the film, though, lies in those oscillations. This isn't a film, it's a movie. It's there to be enjoyed, not endlessly analyzed. In that way, this is yet another successful Guy Richie movie.

Quite a few of the characters in Snatch are played by well-known actors in Britain. Mike Reid plays basically the same character as he does in Eastenders, a soap opera. Vinnie Jones, ex-professional soccer player-turned actor (Lock, Stock and Gone in 60 Seconds) plays the same character as he did in Lock, Stock and on the soccer pitch.

Whilst Snatch is full of stereotyping, it is still enjoyable, and hilarious. Brad Pitt puts in an excellent performance as the Irish gypsy bareknuckle fighter who won't take a fall.

The end result is full of slick, fast editing and good cameos. The results of Richie's directing are far better than Richard Curtis' weak romantic comedies (Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill), and leaves you with a warm feeling inside - not an empty one, as Trainspotting, one of Britain's best exports, did.

8.5/10 - Samey, but still fun.

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