RocknRolla (Theatre) - Ashleigh

Guy Ritchie’s film career started at the peek. His first two films were brilliantly shot, fast paced gangsta flicks that left me wanting to move to England. Then he met Madonna. She ruined him. She destroyed everything he touched. First she stared in the laughably bad Swept Away (2002) a remake of a classic that allowed Madonna to “act” like a selfish princess. Then came the train wreck Revolver (2005), a movie that took three years to cross the pond. Revolver was an abolishment that tried to mix Ritchie’s gangstas with Madonna’s kabala philosophies. Then rumblings of a breakup – were they divorced – weren’t they. Who cares.

Fucking Guy Ritchie is back. During the tumultuous times Ritchie wrote and directed his return to greatness and while RocknRolla isn’t Ritchie’s peek it shines a light into the darkened alley that his career had become.

RocknRolla is Ritchie back to his roots: British thugs running scams. While it does returns to the formula - it’s ending isn’t as complicated nor twisting as his first two. The film starts by introducing the main players. This has worked for Guy quite well in the past and when something isn’t broke you shouldn’t try to fix it. The cast is a massive mix of characters that seem eager to go at each other in a mad dash for money.

The fun of Guy’s first two efforts is back as well. Gone are Revolver’s preachy messages; gone are the horrible acting and influence of Guys former wife. In its place is a well made crime thriller that has been Ritchie’s signature.

Is it anything new? Not really. The main villain gets taken to task. The anti-hero is given just rewards. The ragtag group of misfits is certainly something to root for. And I’m not sure I want Guy Ritchie to do anything else. If he gave me a movie like this every two years I would be happy.

Technically there were one or two new additions. For the first time Ritchie has added a well written/acted female to the cast of characters. The gorgeous Thandie Newton certainly responds well to the boys club that has been Guy’s cast. Also the promise of a proper sequel was splashed across the screen at the end of the film, so I guess I might get my wish after Sherlock Holmes (2009).

But I am grateful for Guy’s return. It is a welcomed return for me. Recently I have been lamenting the current state of films, and it could be because I live in Michigan. It could be because I’m growing older and people just don’t make movies for people like me anymore. I’m not sure, but I feel Guy’s return will give me something, even if it isn’t perfect, to look forward to.

6 out of 10: Guy Ritchie returns to what works.

Revolver (Dvd) - Ashleigh

There has been a lot of bad press about this movie. A lot of it centers around the fact that with this film Guy Ritchie unsuccessfully tries to go back to his staple, gangster flicks, after laying the goose egg Swept Away (2002) starring his horrible wife. Still more of it points out the fact that a movie that was released in Britain in 2005 and took more than three years to come out in America (it went straight to DVD and came out last week on March 18, 2008) is not a good sign for the quality of a film. Still more of it focuses on the fact that this Kabbalah-centric film is too serious and too complicated for anyone to enjoy.

I must admit, I agree with all of these sentiments. But to make a short story long: After hearing, over three years ago, that Jason Statham would be returning to work with Ritchie I was elated.

A side note: I, like most twenty year olds, love Snatch (2000) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). I own about fourteen movies and these two are privileged enough to be part of my collection. I don’t feel it is necessary to purchase movies for repeat viewings as I rarely view a movie more than once; the miniscule cases that I do actually watch a movie more than once, I purchase it. So, having these films in my library is a unique situation, thus as you can understand, I couldn’t wait for Revolver to jump the pond.

So, I waited. And waited. And eventually forgot. But, the other day while traipsing through the local Blockbuster Revolver stared back at me. I looked to my wife for the oh-crap-I’m-going-to-have-to-watch-this-aren’t-I look - it was there, but she approved! Jennie and I quickly exchanged our Project Runway season 3: Disc 3 from Blockbuster Online and hurried home. I had heard everything that was bad about this film, but I didn’t want to believe it. I tried to think that maybe people just didn’t like that he had made English Gangster Flick 3, because, as we can all admit here, Lock, Stock and Snatch are basically the same film. And if that were the case, if Ritchie had simply made another English Gangster movie I would have been happy. I tried to dismiss the critics. I thought maybe it took this long to cross the pond because Ritchie was unhappy with the packaging. Maybe, just maybe, this movie was so awesomely complicated that not many people got it and the film was waiting to be cracked open like an egg till all the juices flowed out. But, it was an egg alright, a horribly stinky rotten egg.

The movie centers around Jake Green (Jason Statham) who is told, after being released from prison, that he has three days before he dies, they don’t really bother to tell you what aliment he has. He is forced to work for gangsters who are extorting two other gangsters. There is a lot of money involved, people get shot, chess is talked about, and Statham seemingly gets existentially duped. I can’t even really describe why this movie was so awful but I will attempt to. There seems to be no motivation for Statham’s character to work with the first set of gangsters, he just simply starts working for them. Their motivation is also seemingly lost on me as they start a war between two other factions of gangsters for no reason. Why they do this and what they get from it - well, it turns out that they are figments of Jake’s imagination cooked up to force Jake trough the existential ringer. The worst part of this film comes in the form of a long monologue about how the only real con is the one that each individual portrays to himself, namely “I am me” and “me is greed”. This, according to Jake Green, is the biggest con of them all. Guy Ritchie attempts to show this inner struggle with an annoying shoutfest between Statham, Statham, and Statham. Using fast edits and overlapping tracks he attempts to create this dizzying fight between the ego and the I. And, I guess, the real Jake Green wins? But really did I care? The film ends and as the credits role Ritchie shows interviews with psychologists who wax philosophically about the greatest trick we play on ourselves is thinking “I am me.”

3 out of 10: Yes, it is as bad as you have heard, the only redeeming item would be particular shots which were chosen and shot to perfection.