March 19, 1999
By Matt Wolf
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Think of a punchier equivalent of Quentin Tarantino's violent joyrides, set in London's tough-as-nails East End, and you have some measure of the knuckle-busting fun in ``Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.''
No, first-time filmmaker Guy Ritchie's maiden effort won't sweep next year's Academy Awards. And it's about as deep as the Damon Runyon-esque names (Hatchet Harry, Barry the Baptist) that make these working-class Londoners sound as if they stepped out of a Blighty version of ``Guys and Dolls.''
But on its own terms, ``Lock, Stock'' gives further evidence that the British cinema is kicking its way back to life.
And there's something nice about a homegrown English hit that doesn't need to don period attire and parasols, Merchant Ivory-style, to win over the public.
The labyrinthine plot involves a time-honored dramatic tale: a get-rich-quick scheme gone awry that finds the smooth-talking, likable Eddie (Nick Moran) in hock to Hatchet Harry (P. H. Moriarty). A porn merchant tough guy, Harry rigs the card game that Eddie is hoping will provide a lifelong pension for him and his mates.
The scenario broadens to include fellow low-lifers like Nick the Greek (Stephen Marcus), who ends up - at least for a while - with a much sought-after pair of antique shotguns (the ``two smoking barrels'' of the title), as well as a squat full of ``trust-afarians'': poshly spoken rich kids who are blowing their trust funds on dope.
Add to the brew a stern-faced debt collector named Big Chris (Vinnie Jones) and his young son-and-sidekick Little Chris (Peter McNicholl) and you have enough local color to populate even meaner streets than writer-director Ritchie, who is only 30, offers up here. (Those new to the area's streetwise slang will hang gratefully on the occasional subtitles that translate some of the decidedly local patois.)
Ritchie has spoken of being influenced by Martin Scor-sese, whose 1973 ``Mean Streets'' remains one of the most impressive early films of any major director. ``Mean Streets,'' though, was deeply infused by a sense of gravity and guilt that are simply alien to the more knockabout milieu of ``Lock, Stock,'' however violent it may be.
Ritchie is as interested in telling jokes (``No can do,'' says one character, to which another replies, ``What's that - a place near Katmandu?'') as he is in evoking a milieu, which may be one of the reasons why the film makes you smile even as its occasional brutality makes you flinch.
``Mean Streets'' was an important early film for the likes of Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, and viewers will have a good time guessing which of the mostly unknown principals of ``Lock, Stock'' will go the distance.
British tabloids have latched on to Moran, not least because he has the high-cheekboned allure that work-ed for Daniel Day-Lewis. And there's no doubt that he's the ever-charming anchor of a sometimes repellent saga.
But Jason Flemyng, Jason Statham and Dexter Fletcher make an appropriately lively set of laddish colleagues, while Steven Mackintosh confirms that he just may be England's most versatile young actor, moving from Dickensian hero (``Our Mutual Friend'') to transsexual (last year's ``Different for Girls'') to the upper-crust layabout he plays here.
As for Vinnie Jones, this celebrated ``hard man'' of English soccer gets the film's drollest exchanges, forever curbing his little son's salty language even as dad prepares for some unspeakable act of brutality or another.
Soccer stars-turned-screen actors would seem to be a local trend, but Jones makes a far more persuasive case for switching professions than his real-life friend Eric Cantona, who plays the French ambassador in the Academy Award-nominated ``Elizabeth.''
Women, meanwhile, are mostly left outside the story, though feminists may take heart in the news that a mostly silent sidekick named Gloria at one point rises from a comatose state to become a genuine gun moll.
Those likely to be most dismayed by the movie may well be traffic wardens, since their profession meets the cruelest end. Then again, that char-acter's fate could also elicit the biggest cheers, depending on what side of the parking ticket you happen to be on.
Return
to Frontpage