RocknRolla Reviewed on Blu-ray
By Bill Warren
Guy Ritchie made a strong impression with two early movies, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," and "Snatch." For the next several years, he was best known as Madonna's latest husband, and for directing her in the excoriatingly-reviewed remake, "Swept Away." But with "RocknRolla" last year and "Sherlock Holmes" this year (and divorcing Madonna), he's returned as a director.
"RocknRolla" is a sardonic, consciously grungy and very talky crime tale (written by the director) about present-day London and just how hard it is for old-style gangsters and thugs to get along in the ever-changing now. Ritchie consciously avoids all the tourist-centric views of the city--we never see Big Ben or the Houses of Parliament, no bridges over the Thames (though the river figures into things in an off-stage manner), no Trafalgar Square or Piccadilly Circus, no palaces, no royalty, no marching guardsmen. Instead, it takes place in a city that is busily being rebuilt--almost every scene includes a building under construction, or one that seems about ready for demolition.
Similarly, the movie concentrates entirely on a bunch of interacting criminals; the film leaps from character to character while the audience scurries to keep up. There really isn't much in the line of a plot; scenes that are emphasized aren't plot points, but do feature important character details. And it's full of talk--everyone is constantly yammering away, but the dialogue itself is rarely important--what is important is the outcome of the scene.
There's occasionally narration by Archy (Mark Stone), right-hand man to money-dealer Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson, with the top of his head shaved), an old-line gangster who no longer considers himself merely a gangster, but a businessman. Still, he's tough and crude, though he tries to show incredibly wealthy Russian criminal Uri (Karel Roden) that he can set things up so Uri can put up a building without bothering with all the legal niceties. Uri will pay Lenny seven million Euros for this, and loans Lenny his most prized possession, a lucky painting by an old master, extremely valuable. (Impishly, Ritchie never lets us see the painting.)
But Lenny finds that his usual contacts for such things, One Two (Gerard Butler) and Mumbles (Idris Elba), can't bring this one off. Meanwhile, One Two and Mumbles easily steal the seven million Euros for themselves. This means that skilled, but bored, accountant Stella (Thandie Newton) needs to be brought into things. Also involved are a pair of American rock 'n' roll promoters, Roman (Jeremy Piven) and Mickey (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges)--who themselves are having big problems, as their star act, Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), has been declared dead for the third time this years. Mostly, he's just in hiding. And he's the stepson of Lenny; the two hate each other. And One Two has just learned that his driver, Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy), is gay, and fancies--One Two.
Stella sets up another seven million for Uri to present to Lenny, but One Two, Mumbles and Bob try to steal this batch, too. However, this time the money is guarded by two awesomely indestructible Chechnyans. This prompts the movie's biggest, and funniest, action scenes, as One Two and Mumbles try to evade the two thugs, as unkillable as the Terminator. Guns, baseball bats (!), blocks of wood, trains--nothing stops them. But maybe they can be outrun.
All these threads intertwine, with occasional side scenes involving dunking enemies in a Thames full of American crayfish, scenes in a gay bar, scenes at a party that looks like the second coming of the Hellfire Club, the odd rock song or two, and other issues. It's all scored inventively, even amusingly--whenever Uri is discussed, we hear balalaikas on the soundtrack. There are occasional helpful onscreen titles (like little pictures, not subtitles) to let us know what's being said in scenes otherwise drowned out by background music. At least once, a character addresses the camera directly. But while this stuff is amusing, the movie isn't quite a comedy.
It is, however, loads of fun--provided you get linked up to its quirky rhythms and don't demand that each scene reveal its meaning. It just keeps accumulating, with one bunch of crooks caroming off the other, while everyone talks on.
There are a couple of scenes in plush restaurants, but they're low-key and not intended to be beautiful--nor is any of the movie. Instead, it's grim and grungy throughout, with lots of distasteful if not disgusting detail presented clearly in high definition picture and sound. You can see a couple of crayfish doggedly clinging to a dunked mobster; you can see way too much detail in Johnny Quid's impressively squalid lair. Many scenes take place in the now-abandoned Battersea electrical station, dusty, crumbling, with cracked windows and crud everywhere. Ritchie makes all of this seem wryly amusing, not revolting.
He provides a commentary track, and there are a few amusing featurettes, one centering on the rapid reconversion of London from the ancient city it is to the hotbed of modern world commerce. Buildings are going up everywhere all around the city; the big orange construction cranes seem to multiply as you watch them. But down here on the ground, people are still robbing one another, beating each other up, grabbing a bit of quick sex, and exacting long-overdue revenge.
"RocknRolla" isn't really all it should have been, but it's still entertaining and engrossing; it looks--well, "great" isn't the right word, but "impressive" will do, in high definition. The cast is terrific--Tom Wilkinson is always terrific--and are clearly greatly engaged in and amused by the wildly conflicting characters they play.
