Ryanburg Film Commentary No. 3 (3-17-99)
Cockedup Cockneys - Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels
Genre = British/Crime Drama/Comedy
Set in East London among the low-rent working class, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels follows the misadventures of four young men looking to get up in the world (Jason
Flemyng, Jason Statham, Nick Moran and Dexter Fletcher). The group devises a plan where their
card sharp pal will take 100,000 Pounds of their money and make them a fortune at a high-stakes
poker game. Unfortunately for them, the game is run by a shady gangster know as “Hatchet” Harry (P.H.
Moriarty) whose primary business is being a porn king, and helped by his strong-arm associate
Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean). The group is cheated and ends up owing the porn king
500,000 Pounds. They must pay the amount owed in a week otherwise they will start to lose
important parts of their bodies. Then the real meat of the film begins.
This film has been called Pulp Fiction meets the Full Monty, and they are neither totally correct
nor totally wrong. While most American films lately seem to come up strong in the first half, and
then fall off pitifully in the second, this film starts out very amusing and then explodes into plot
twists and turns with hilarious bounds and rebounds in a plot involving two shotguns and a bag
of money that is far to complicated to put in a short review.
Fast and engagingly paced, wittily written, brilliantly directed and non-stop hilarious from
beginning to end. Its better than trainspotting and is supposedly being made into a television
series in Britain. I highly recommend it
Quote = There's no money, there's no weed. It's all been replaced by a fucking big pile of
corpses.