Starring Jason Flemyng,
Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Steve Mackintosh, Vinnie Jones and Sting.
Rated MA.
Don't be surprised if you do not recognise
many of the names on the list of stars. But if you watch any British TV at all, you will
recognise many of the faces. Fine actors all. The cameo from Sting was particularly
surprising for its believably-menacing impact.
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is the pommy version of Pulp
Fiction. It has a plethora of recognisable faces. It has lots of senseless violence. It
has plenty of dark humour. But above all it oozes with the charm and attraction of an
easy, natural portrayal of the sleazy, unattractive side of cockney street life (even
though I am Irish, born and bred, I still love the cockney accent and rhyming slang). And
yet, for all the violence and sleaze, it is actually quite funny, especially the rather
unorthodox finale ... but I don't want to spoil your surprise.
The movie tells the story of four street-wise friends in
London's hard, east-end streets. Eddie has a natural talent for cards. Not that he is
particularly good at the cards themselves, at counting them or knowing what was dealt.
But, he has a particularly keen sense for human reactions. Armed with his confidence and a
£100,000 stake put together by the four, Eddie sits in on the game, which unknown to him
is rigged. Not only does he loose the hundred Gs, but five times that on top. Bad enough
that he lost his mates' life savings and bad enough that he indebted them all for half a
million, but he indebted them to the meanest, toughest and most feared gangster in the
whole of London.
Hatchet Harry is not all bad, though. He generously gives the
boys five days to come up with the readies before his henchman starts to remove one pinkie
from each of them, every day until the money is found.
Now, a desperate situation like this requires desperate
measures. The boys overhear their neighbours planning a hoist, one in which a significant
amount of cash and hash is expected to be realised. And so the boys hatch their own plan
to rob the robbers.
All goes relatively smoothly until it comes time to sell the
haul of hash. Without spoiling the plot, it's safe to relate that their actions spark a
chain reaction that does more to clean up east-end crime than a thousand episodes of The
Bill.
As always, if you choose to see this movie because you know it's
a violent, yet darkly humorous look at the seedier side of life in the seedier side of one
of the planet's biggest cities, then you will love Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels. If
Sliding Doors or Message in a Bottle are more your style, then forget it.
