Snatch it while you can. Guy Ritchie has done it again, and this time he's managed to use a star-studded cast to boot.
The massively underrated Brad Pitt plays the Irish 'pikey' helping out small-time gangster promoter Turkish (Jason Statham) after he injures Turkish's fighter in a bare-knuckle bout the night before the big fight. Ritchie carefully avoids comparisons with Pitt's last fighting role in Fight Club, and carefully mixes in several sub-plots which, if shown in a TV-series, would require around 20 episodes.
But the story remains easy to follow, and the young director uses all his trademark effects - fast camera zooms and unpredictable plot twists - to great effect.
It's less violent than Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and takes itself more seriously, and all the better for it.
If you liked LS&2SB, you should like this. If you didn't, it's probably worth seeing Snatch anyway just to witness the slickness of the camerawork, the great ensemble acting, and the marvellous characters.
Ritchie has been criticised for sticking to a successful formula, but this 'formula' is what he excels in. Let's just hope that we don't get the scores of Brit-flick gangster flops that followed Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Highly recommended.
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