I actually considered not doing a post on this film because part of my intention with this blog is to inform people about the plot at least in a basic manner. But as I myself am not entirely sure of the plot I don't have as much to talk about with this picture as most other pictures. I was so very disappointed with this movie. But since this blog is about movies, for better or worse I feel that it wouldn't be right for me to avoid blogging about this picture. Also, as anyone who has looked through my blog can see, I have posted about pictures that I dislike before. It appears that it is time for another one.
In my personal opinion, I hold Guy Ritchie films in high regard for the most part. Prior to RocknRolla I felt that he had only made one "bad" picture and it wasn't entirely his fault because the picture wasn't truly his but rather a remake if I'm not mistaken (Swept Away in case you were wondering is the film I am referring to). So, there I was all happy that another "wonderful" Guy Ritchie film was coming out called RocknRolla. I didn't know what the plot was and I didn't care because "it's a Guy Ritchie film so it's bound to be good, right?" To add to it, one of my favorite actors Gerard Butler is in it so yay! Boy was I mistaken.
My biggest problem with the plot is the plot. I couldn't actually tell what was going on half the time. There were too many characters and sub plots to keep up with. One of the funny things is that I started the picture from the beginning so it wasn't like I missed any part of it that would make me go "Hmm..what's going on?" Basically the film is about criminals stealing from other criminals and there's a criminal who is supposed to be dead but by not being dead he could ruin everything and the Russian mafia is involved. There are quite a few talented people in this film including Gerard Butler (of course) playing the character One Two, Idris Elba playing Mumbles, Thandie Newton playing Stella, Tom Wilkinson playing Lenny, Tom Hardy playing Handsome Bob (truly great actor and character ;-)), Mark Strong playing Archie, and others.
Given the stellar cast and the writer/director this film should have been great. It wasn't. The best parts were with "The Wild Bunch" One Two, Mumbles, and Handsome Bob. The two best parts in my opinion were the part where One Two and Mumbles are attempting to steal from some tough Russian mafia dudes and everything goes comically wrong and the part with Handsome Bob and One Two hanging out together the night before Handsome Bob is supposed to go back to jail. It was particularly funny to see One Two defensively demanding that Handsome Bob not talk about what they did together and Handsome Bob's smirk response. Archy was funny too at times.
I got so lost so quick that I actually had to look up the plot synopsis online to find out what this picture was about while I was watching it! Even then I had to periodically look at the plot synopsis to see what the heck was going on. I was also annoyed that when I saw this picture on tv, they cut out "what One Two and Handsome Bob did together before Handsome Bob went to jail". As it turns out they slow danced together because Handsome Bob is gay and is attracted to One Two. Apparently One Two was completely oblivious to the fact that Handsome Bob is gay but everyone else that knows Handsome Bob knows that he is gay. The slow dancing scene was cute and funny. I recommend looking it up on YouTube if you don't have a way to access the film on dvd/blu ray to watch it yourself.
I suppose no filmmaker is perfect and Guy Ritchie unintentionally displayed a noted lack of "perfection" with this picture. Happily he seems to have gotten his groove back since then so hopefully the world will be spared of future "failures" so to speak. Very disappointing since I should think that a picture with Stella and the Wild Bunch would probably be better than this picture.
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