TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - First the good news: Guy Ritchie is back. Then the even better news: Guy Ritchie is back with his most accessible and pleasurable film until now in "RocknRolla."
After acquiring swept off course by Madonna ("Swept Away") and pretension ("Revolver"), the English writer-director, wHO in the late '90s invented a new form of criminally funny pulp fiction set in an exaggerated London underworld, returns to this gangland with renewed vigour. It's all here: the ingenious, obscenity-laced language, the double-crosses that turn into triple-crosses, the swaggering characters so in love with themselves. GottaLove "RocknRolla"!
Which also is good news show for Warner Bros. when the distributor releases the dark criminal offence comedy across the nation October 8. Although pitched more toward males, the film contains one deliciously duplicitous turn by Thandie Newton that might touch more than a few female viewers' inner gangster.
The London underworld to which Ritchie returns looks selfsame much the same merely somehow different. For one thing, that skyline is changing incessantly thanks to the surge in skyscrapers and property values, which is what Ritchie's story revolves about. For some other, a nouveau riche idea of chichi has invaded the new East London commercial complexes, and the place is full of Russian and Eastern European businessmen.
"RocknRolla" throws three distinct branches of criminals against one another. Old School, with its network of on-the-take bureaucrats, crooked politicians and back entrance fixers, is represented by Tom Wilkinson's merciless mobster and his right-hand man, Mark Strong. New School is Karel Roden's Russian billionaire, backed by a willingness to use physical violence that makes Old School expect as if Mary Poppins were its headmistress.
Finally, there's the Wild Bunch, the kind of small-timers world Health Organization populated Ritchie's earlier gangster films and who are hungry to challenge the raised bar of the crime world. These include Gerard Butler, more big than he is smart, but he's learning, and his longtime mates Idris Elba and Tom Hardy. The waste card is a real rock 'n' roller -- Toby Kebbell's missing and presumed dead punk rocker who happens to be Wilkinson's near estranged stepson.
The Russian comes to Wilkinson to get a building project past the red tape. The Russian's favourite painting goes missing, his accountant is tipping cancelled a few lowlifes, the Russian blames the mobster, who in turn pressures his acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and somehow the dead rocker has the painting. Then Butler makes a startling discovery about his best mate.
The movie, narrated like a graphic comical -- as Ritchie tends to do -- spins off in many directions, and afterwards you see there were several spins and scenes more than necessary. You get the feeling that when Ritchie as a writer hits on a great scene, Ritchie the director can't bring himself to cut it.�
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