Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

One line review: If you can keep up with the plot, it’s probably one of the funnest movies I’ve seen.

Movie Title: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

Actors: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Steven Mackintosh, Nick Marcq, Charles Forbes, Vinnie Jones, Lenny McLean, P.H. Moriarty, Steve Sweeney

Director: Guy Ritchie

Year: 1998

Genre: Comedy

Method of Viewing: Netflix Instant Play

Location of Viewing: Home

Viewing with: Friends in #Jazzmess

Rotten Tomatoes: 71% – With visual style to spare, and a cast and plot you need a computer to keep track of, British writer-director Guy Ritchie’s first feature, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” lacks nothing in energy.

My rating: **** – A Legendary movie, but with some flaws.

My assessment (the first 101 words at least): This movie is just fun to watch. The plot at the beginning seems to be going in a thousand directions, and by the end has so many happy coincidences and funny moments that it’s insane. This movie doesn’t really let your eyes get a rest, as your either constantly studying the strange characters you’re introduced to, or looking in the background for some detail you missed. This is the definition of a movie that I need to watch again in a couple of months, just to appreciated all the details of the plot and characters even more. A solid four stars.

This movie is perfectly imperfect. This movie’s only big problem is that the plot and characters are so intricately connected that it’s difficult to keep track of. However, I wouldn’t change a thing with this movie. That absolutely crazy plot is one of the most enjoyable things about this movie. You’re introduced to a ton of characters and at least 5 separate plots at the beginning of the movie. If you can muscle through that, you’ll slowly learn to recognize each of the characters by their strange nicknames. One by one, the plot threads also begin to bind together until the end of the movie leads to the ultimate conclusion for every single character and plot thread.

I honestly could take up pages looking at each of these characters. Any one one of them could be an interesting character study, and as a group they compliment each other so well. I’ll try to just give them all a few sentences

It’s Jason Statham as Jason Statham as Bacon.  It’s very weird to have him in a role where he isn’t so much an action hero as just a wise cracking bad ass in general. None the less, you’ll soon forget all of his silly action movies and just enjoy the character. 

Eddie gets a chance to really show off his character much earlier than any of the other gang in the poker game. I love a character who has so much confidence, and even when he loses, still manages to recover (after some barfing).

I suppose Soap is an obligatory character if only to remind the group how screwed they are at every turn. I was a bit annoyed that a character who apparently never wanted to get his hands dirty was so ready and willing to do an armed robbery as soon as it was needed. Oh well, I still enjoyed his constant nervousness.

I didn’t have much of an opinion on Tom (perhaps due to the difficulty of keep track of all these characters) until the end when he was so adamant about hanging on to those guns. I prefer to believe that he ended up tossing the guns, if only because the karma of this group would demand it.

I’m not sure if I should or even could give a full and proper review after just one viewings. While I was struggling to keep up with the plot I noticed the visual themes of sepa whenever dealing with our main group of guys, followed by greens when dealing with the ganja dealers (and I’m talking about more than just the weed). This is a movie that definitely has an extra layer you’ll only appreciate from a second viewing.

Maybe a few months from now I’ll give it another view, and find something new that will make me enjoy the film even more. It’s still a fantastic film though.