Rocknrolla. (15.)
Directed by Guy Ritchie. 2008
Starring Gerald Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Thandie Newton, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Toby Kebbell. 114 mins.
There can be no surer sign of recession than the return of Guy finger-on-the-corpse Ritchie with a study of booming London where property prices are soaring. How apt that it should coincide with the return of Oasis another mid nineties Britpop era act that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Oasis and Ritchie have followed similar career paths. A blinding debut, a bloated follow up that still showed considerable promise and then just unceasing stream of crud. I haven’t seen Swept Away or Revolver,* the previous two Ritchie films which had derision heaped, but the idea that Rocknrolla is somehow a return to form beggars belief because Rocknrolla is the biggest heap of knocked off second hand tat it seen since Steptoe and Son gave up the rag and bone.
The inspiration seems to have been other Guy Ritchie films and reading the London Paper.** There’s a Roman Abramovich character, a Pete Docherty character, lots of shots of Canary Wharf architecture, lots of bad nicknames, a gangster who’s exactly the same as the gangster in Lock Stock and a plot that might have made for a passable Minder but just goes round and round to no end at all.
The chief problem is the film isn’t nearly violent enough. As soon as these characters appear on screen you’re desperate to have them killed or maimed or tortured as quickly as possible, if only to stop them having to try and speak Ritchie appalling mouth mangling dialogue.
Ritchie does still have taste in actors and he’s assembled a quality cast who do their best. Wilkinson's gangster Lenny is part Harold Pinter part Harry Worth. Sadly, the marvellous Mark Strong gets stuck with the narrator’s role which is a very, very short straw. He has to spend the first ten minutes outlining all of the film tedious characters and plots – imagine a Star Wars film where the opening scrawl went on for ten minutes and you’ll get some idea of how this sucks the life out of the film. (How unfair that the other male leads in Our Friends in The North got to be Doctor Who and James Bond and he’s stuck playing cockney heavies in Guy Ritchie films.)
As the last Ritchie film I saw was Snatch I can honesty, hand on heart, say I went in with an open mind,hoping Ritchie might make a Ben Affleck style return from Celebrity Clowndom. Instead it's more like Martin Amis writing Yellow Dog – an attempt to go back to Wht You Do Best, only o discover you can't no it any more. It’s not a matter of simply hating this film; I was affronted by this film. I sat there getting more and more angry and at the end I wanted to storm round to Madonna’s house and shout my “let’s be having ya” through the gated drive way. I felt like I was being approached in a pub by a shady character who suggested I might be interested in some hooky gaudy trinkets he had for sale – What is this film taking me for for? Some kind of a c***?
*Have now: actually quite liked Revolver.
** The first of the free giveaway papers that tried to break the stranglehold of the Evening Standard.
Rocknrolla. (15.)
Directed by Guy Ritchie. 2008
Starring Gerald Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Thandie Newton, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Toby Kebbell. 114 mins.
There can be no surer sign of recession than the return of Guy finger-on-the-corpse Ritchie with a study of booming London where property prices are soaring. How apt that it should coincide with the return of Oasis another mid nineties Britpop era act that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Oasis and Ritchie have followed similar career paths. A blinding debut, a bloated follow up that still showed considerable promise and then just unceasing stream of crud. I haven’t seen Swept Away or Revolver,* the previous two Ritchie films which had derision heaped, but the idea that Rocknrolla is somehow a return to form beggars belief because Rocknrolla is the biggest heap of knocked off second hand tat it seen since Steptoe and Son gave up the rag and bone.
The inspiration seems to have been other Guy Ritchie films and reading the London Paper.** There’s a Roman Abramovich character, a Pete Docherty character, lots of shots of Canary Wharf architecture, lots of bad nicknames, a gangster who’s exactly the same as the gangster in Lock Stock and a plot that might have made for a passable Minder but just goes round and round to no end at all.
The chief problem is the film isn’t nearly violent enough. As soon as these characters appear on screen you’re desperate to have them killed or maimed or tortured as quickly as possible, if only to stop them having to try and speak Ritchie appalling mouth mangling dialogue.
Ritchie does still have taste in actors and he’s assembled a quality cast who do their best. Wilkinson's gangster Lenny is part Harold Pinter part Harry Worth. Sadly, the marvellous Mark Strong gets stuck with the narrator’s role which is a very, very short straw. He has to spend the first ten minutes outlining all of the film tedious characters and plots – imagine a Star Wars film where the opening scrawl went on for ten minutes and you’ll get some idea of how this sucks the life out of the film. (How unfair that the other male leads in Our Friends in The North got to be Doctor Who and James Bond and he’s stuck playing cockney heavies in Guy Ritchie films.)
As the last Ritchie film I saw was Snatch I can honesty, hand on heart, say I went in with an open mind,hoping Ritchie might make a Ben Affleck style return from Celebrity Clowndom. Instead it's more like Martin Amis writing Yellow Dog – an attempt to go back to Wht You Do Best, only o discover you can't no it any more. It’s not a matter of simply hating this film; I was affronted by this film. I sat there getting more and more angry and at the end I wanted to storm round to Madonna’s house and shout my “let’s be having ya” through the gated drive way. I felt like I was being approached in a pub by a shady character who suggested I might be interested in some hooky gaudy trinkets he had for sale – What is this film taking me for for? Some kind of a c***?
*Have now: actually quite liked Revolver.
** The first of the free giveaway papers that tried to break the stranglehold of the Evening Standard.
