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ROCKNROLLA Send This Review to a Friend
Guy Ritchie’s latest, “Rocknrolla,” viewed at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, rocks and rolls gangland style. Energy-filled, it is built around a tale of competing criminals in London. Ritchie’s screenplay is peopled with an odd assortment of characters, all played by excellent actors who make these unsavory characters come alive with a comic bent even in the face of deadly force.
This sort of film is hardly for everyone, but if you enjoy crime mixed with comedy and amusing sketching of underworld types, you are likely to enjoy the fast-moving action concoction. Tom Wilkinson, good at playing any character part, here is Lenny, a tough crime boss. But there’s competition from Uri (Karel Roden), a nasty Russian who is loaded with money and wants to assert his own power. Times are changing.
In the midst of everything is a painting that has become the object of desire.
Gerard Butler plays a hustler, and the femme fatale interest is Stella, an accountant with plenty of sex appeal played by Thandie Newton. She’s skilled at keeping books for criminals. Mark Strong as Archy works for Lenny. The “rock” in the title is represented by a drug-addicted punk rock star named Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), who goes missing in the hope that people will assume him dead, thereby making his recordings more valuable. Numerous other oddball characters add to the entourage.
Those familiar with Ritchie’s other work, like “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” will know to expect plenty of action and assorted locations all filmed with verve. And that’s what we get, virtually non-stop. A Warner Bros Pictures release.
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