Snatch **** (2000, Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro) – Classic Movie Review 323

Brad Pitt buys into writer-director Guy Ritchie’s street-cred allure for the 2000 film Snatch, his eagerly-awaited follow-up to the 1998 Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.

What does Brad Pitt think he’s doing? He’s the first star to play a bare-knuckle boxer in consecutive movies, but, hey, if you’ve an A1 body, flaunt it. Did we say he’s playing Irish again and buying into writer-director Guy Ritchie’s street-cred allure for his long-awaited 2000 follow-up to Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels?

And what’s Ritchie doing? Much the same again, too, except more confidently and cleverly, in another grungy, callous and disreputable black-comedy lowlife London gangster thriller, with Vinnie Jones and all the old gang back. Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Jason Flemyng, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Mike Reid, Alan Ford, Ewen Bremner, Robbie Gee, Lennie James and Rade Serbedzija are also in Ritchie’s notable cast.

Two gangsters are drawn into the world of boxing-match fixing, and discover their boxer has been laid out by a ‘pike’. This Irish gypsy brawler character named Mickey O’Neil, weirdly, offers the eagerly taken chance for a highly amusing turn by visiting American star Pitt (fresh off Fight Club). Quite a coup for Ritchie at the time.

This time Ritchie’s screenplay is virtually plot-free, although it certainly has a set-up and a good one – the aftermath of an Antwerp diamond heist – as rival factions crunch bones while trying to end up with a diamond as big as the Ritz. Everyone’s chasing this priceless diamond in this frenzied, stylish, hard-nosed, punchy, lowlife gem-heist caper.

Snatch is a triumph of confident, well-placed film-making, flashy editing and poseur performances. Unexpectedly perhaps, Pitt brilliantly gets away with his incoherent gypsy turn, and is very funny, and there are several other spot-on turns. And the result is at least as good as Ritchie’s 1998 debut film Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, perhaps better, certainly sharper and more polished.

Very extreme in places, it’s frenzied, frantic, hard-hitting and nasty-toned. Trash with flash, it has style, pace, energy – and it is very funny and exciting, though we sincerely hope that the world isn’t really like this and it’s only a movie. One of Ritchie’s best, though.

The top 20 British heist movies.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 323

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