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- "Snatch"
(Reviewed October 25, 2000)
- This is the second film from writer/director Guy Ritchie (better known stateside as Mr. Madonna), whose brilliant "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" was the best film of
1998.
(Sez me, that's who.) Like that film, this one weaves several crime-related plotlines into a seamless and incredibly stylish whole. The difference here is that "Snatch" lacks a single obviously central
character; it
feels more like an anthology of separate stories that end up colliding into each other. The character called Turkish is meant to be our "main man," but there are so many other excellent performances and so
many
other colorful characters that none take the lead.
Don't get me wrong, though -- this is still a definite "thumbs up" review. Ritchie is a real artist as a director, one who does more with a camera in
five
minutes that most directors do in two hours. And
his script is funny, violent, convoluted and endlessly clever.
Also, casting Brad Pitt as an unintelligible Irish gypsy bare-knuckles fighter was a stroke of genius. His part of the story ends up like
an
alternate-universe version of "Fight Club," which was the best movie of 1999. (Sez me again.) It's amusingly cruel that in a movie with British accents so broad subtitles would be welcome, Brad Pitt
turns out to be the hardest person to understand.
I was going to give this movie a "B+", until I realized that I definitely will go to the theatre to see it again. Any movie that gets me to shell out cash for a ticket after seeing it free at an advance
screening just has to rate an "A," now doesn't it?
Back Row Grade: A
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