Eye Candy #289 - "RockNRolla"

RockNRolla:  I’m a big fan of some of Guy Ritchie’s earlier work.  “Snatch” is one of those rare movies I can watch again and again and again, quoting line for line.  The British underworld has always seemed to be Ritchie’s mode of choice, yet for being billed as a “crime thriller”, “RockNRolla” plays more like the Keystone Krooks more than anything remotely “thrilling“.  One-Two (Gerard Butler) and Mumbles (Idris Elba) are two English criminals, who are part of a gang called the Wild Bunch, are trying to get their piece of a very lucrative real estate scheme in London.  Running with the wrong people, including local godfather Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson doing his variation of Brick Top from “Snatch”, except Alan Ford was much better in “Snatch”) and Archy, his second in command. One-Two and Mumbles find themselves involved with a stolen painting, perverse Russian mobsters, and a crack-addicted British pop star who just faked his own death.  Kinetic?  Sure.  Funny?  Somewhat.  But it seems so much like watching a retread of the same ground “Snatch” covered, with characters that are less compelling (no one in this film comes close to Bullet Tooth Tony), a plot that is more complicated than need be, with a wrap-up denouement that ties everything up neatly in a bow (just like “Snatch“ did).  Reportedly the first part of a trilogy involving the same characters, I’m not holding my breath waiting for part 2.  Woodchuck sez, “You’ve seen this before and better.”