Ritchie's 'Snatch': even more fun than Ritalin

In retrospect, the leisurely opening of Snatch is definitely a ploy to lull the audience into a false sense of security, shattered when all hell breaks loose just a few minutes later. The sequence leaves the audience blinking, and from that point on, Snatch stays one frame ahead of the view-er's eyes. Writer-director Guy Ritchie makes it clear from the start that he's willing to throw in every kinetic editing trick and crazy plot device he can think of, which makes for an exhilarating, if somewhat slick and disjointed, ride. If you're one of those people who complains about the shrinking modern attention span, this movie will probably irritate you, but it is a well executed and extremely entertaining example of an ADHD-afflicted movie.

COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES Getting into character, Brad Pitt considers how to get that damn pot of gold back from the kids.

Before his marriage to Madonna, Ritchie made a smaller name for himself as director of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, a small, violent black comedy about criminals in London. Snatch—a somewhat larger, violent black comedy about criminals in London—will certainly draw comparisons, but it is its own story told in its own way. The movies share some cast members, a setting, and a certain blend of comedy and violence, but while Snatch doesn't represent new territory, it isn't a complete copy, proving there are plenty of stories to tell in this style and setting.

The plot of Snatch defies any kind of clear summarization (and sorry, boys, the title's misleading—there are scarcely any women onscreen in any capacity), but the elaborate story is really just a way of connecting a large and colorful cast. Basically, after Frankie Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) steals a massive diamond and arrives with it in London, the gem is pursued by a wide variety of criminals, each with their own motives and methods.

It's the cast that really makes this movie, with almost every actor somehow allowing you to follow him through the plot's many contortions. The narrator is an illegal boxing promoter named Turkish (Jason Statham), who, with his partner Tommy, gets inadvertently drawn into the action through a string of coincidences. Brad Pitt is surprisingly good as a scruffy bare-knuckle boxer, with a very funny, deliberately incoherent accent, perhaps a wink at his much-ridiculed attempt at a brogue in The Devil's Own. Also involved in various ways are Dennis Farina as blustering American gangster Cousin Avi; his London counterpart, Doug the Head (Doug Reid), and his hired muscle, Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones); and Rade Serbedzija and Alan Ford as two more badass bad guys with wacky nicknames. Suffice it to say that everything soon goes violently wrong for everybody.

Ritchie connects the myriad schemes and characters skillfully, and though the story is complex, it isn't too difficult to follow. It's probably just as well that the audience doesn't have too much time to think about the details, since the plot's coherence doesn't stand up too well to scrutiny, but it's nevertheless interesting to watch the various plot threads cross and uncross. However, one of the movie's strong points is also one of its biggest flaws: so many of the characters are interesting enough to merit almost an entire movie that it seems like a waste to throw them into such a large ensemble, and without the screen time to develop each of them, the audience never really has time to care much about any of them. Pitt's Mickey, Del Toro's Frankie, and Lennie James and Robbie Gee as two hapless pawnshop owners stand out as especially deserving of more screen time. But the movie is really interested in the broader interaction of all of its inhabitants, and, in that area, it accomplishes its goals with a lot of flair.

The constant action goes well with Ritchie's frenetic directing style, where the basic principle seems be that, like a shark, the movie will die if it stops moving. It never does, and a remarkable amount of activity is crammed into the less-than-two-hour running time. For example, the movie manages to get Dennis Farina (in full Get Shorty gangster mode) from New York to London in approximately five seconds. This kind of fast cutting will look familiar to anyone who's seen Pi or Requiem for a Dream, though it is used here in a different context and for a different effect.

Ritchie's style is undoubtedly indebted to a number of different directors, and comparisons to Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting, not to mention Two Smoking Barrels seem inevitable. But Snatch manages to feel fresh even though some of its ingredients (notably its brand of black comedy, violence, and visual flash) are recycled; perhaps borrowing from talented directors is an art form in itself. The synthesis of so many different influences has created a movie different enough from any single one of them to feel new—with the possible exception of Two Smoking Barrels but then, you're allowed to rip yourself off. Snatch is certainly a case of valuing style over substance, but it's just stylish enough to get away with it. This time.

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