Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla music to our ears

Madonna divorcing Guy Ritchie is probably the best thing to happen to the Brit gangster movie genre since …well, Guy Ritchie.

The couple’s much-publicised split last year was happening about the same time as the 40-year-old writer-director-producer was completing his first movie in three years, RocknRolla.

Upon viewing, it has proven to signal a return to form for the once ‘It’ filmmaker who hasn’t had a hit since he was last Madonna-less back in 2000 with Snatch.

His breakthrough outing came a release earlier, in 1998 with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which rivalled Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) as the most cleverly done crime pieces of the 1990s.

Snatch was more of the same – featuring the goings-on in the seedy underworld of London – and had moments of brilliance such as Brad Pitt’s Gypsy.

But, in the eight years between that enjoyable thrill-ride and RocknRolla there was really only Madonna, Madonna’s sweat pants and not much else.

In fact Madonna almost put an end to Ritchie’s career in 2001 when she presumably made him make the aptly-titled Swept Away, and featuring herself in the lead role. Gone were the tough city streets, replaced by some remote island.

Ritchie attempted to get his mojo back in 2005 when he returned to the arms of Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Snatch) for Revolver, which obviously featured guns, but without any any meaningful result.

It has taken until now, following a nice little divorce settlement, for Ritchie to break free of the Material Granny’shackles and get back to doing what he truly does best.

While it made just $5m at the US Box Office when released late last year, and only brough a few rave reviews from critics, RocknRolla delivers the goods and even leaves you hoping for more.

One of my favorite cult movies of the 1980s is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. It was an eccentric sci-fi/actioner that led us to believe there would be a follow-up in which the title character takes on the World Crime League.

It never came.

Like the end of Buckaroo, just before the credits start rolling for RocknRolla we see splashed across the screen: ‘Johnny, Archy and the Wild Bunch will be back in The Real RocknRolla’.

Ritchie is said to in fact be planning a trilogy, with the third installment titled RockNRolla Suicide.

If the first movie is anything to go by I hope it happens.

There is nothing new about RocknRolla. It is the same Ritchie formula used in Lock, Stock and Snatch. There are plenty gangsters, small-time crooks and bunch of double-crossing and triple-crossing.

Only this time gambling, drugs and diamonds have been replaced by a softer but still violence-inducing elements such as building permits, paintings and a little music.

King Leonidis himself Gerard Butler (300) has top billing in this caper as One-Two, the leader of a low-level criminal outfit, the aforementioined Wild Bunch, and a guy coming to grips with just finding out that his best mate is gay.

While you would expect him to be seriously throwing his weight around here after his effort in 300 – he’s a tough guy in a tough film – but his appearances are mainly comical but very well done.

At one point we assume he’s given his recently outed mate a ‘sexual favour’ before he heads to prison for five years, then later we see him strapped dacedown to a bad while a couple of big burly Russian henchman, wearing nothing but socks and jocks gear up for some ‘action’.

But the real stars are relative newcomer Tony Kebbell and Academy Award nominee veteran Tom Wilkinson who went to the trouble of shaving his head halfway back to play the ruthless self-appointed top dog of London’s property development, Lenny. The guy is brilliant and it is his movie for much of the first half.

The second completely belongs to Kebbell, who plays Wilkinson’s estranged drug addicted, sometime rock star, painting thief, pencil-wielding step-son, the cooly-named Johnny Quid.

Much of the enormously witty albeit as course-as-usual dialogue Ritchie has come up with for this RocknRolla was delivered by Wilkinson and Kibbell and brilliantly done so. Their characters are true larger than life figures.

(Spoiler here) It is the end of the story that is so tantilising with a now reformed Johnny taking control of the ‘family business’ from his ‘got what was coming to him’ step-father, with the help of ‘Uncle Archie’, Lenny’s former right-hand man who is played by another stand-out in Mark Strong.

It appears as though Ritchie is doing his own London version of The Godfather.

He’s not quite Al Pacino, but the charasmatic Kibbell, who I saw for the first time recently in Dead Man’s Shoes (2004), has a big future and could certainly pull off being the centre of a new trilogy.

Though Ritchie may have also proven himself to be a bit of a one-trick pony, as long as that little fella is heading in the right direction he’s well worth a ride.

So bring on The Real RockNRolla.

Now all we need is Madonna staying away from Ritchie … Maybe cast Sean Penn in the next picture. That’d help.

RATING: 7.5/10

This Guy is back. We want more.

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