Snatch

Guy Ritchie, UK / USA, 2000, 104 minutes

The perfect antidote to all of those Fresher Week booze-ups, a slice of nouveau-Ritchie gangster chique with Brad Pitt to boot. The plot is far too complicated for any humble reviewer like me to explain - suffice to say that it is all about diamonds. And boxing. And dog poo…oh you get the picture

Guy Ritchie is confident with his material, and sticks to the old adage, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. A number of the old Lock Stock... guys are back in force, most notably Jason Stratham with a more central role this time. You will inevitably be reminded of Lock Stock..., but this is the older and very much harder brother of that film, with Ritchie using much more stylized sequences and a sharper script which is far more complex and interesting.

The unusual casting of Pitt works surprisingly well, and the quality of his acting does shine through (just don’t expect to understand a word he says). The jokey tone of his scenes takes on a more sinister note towards the end when the audience is jolted back into the reality of the underworld that the characters inhabit.

Snatch is undoubtedly a director's film, which at times probably does try to be cooler than it actually is. But no-one can deny that Ritchie delivers the goods and gets the best out of his actors. I hesitate to call this a boy's film, but I went to see it with a lady and she loved it – Brad predictably does get his kit off, I suppose. Watch out for Frank butcher, and don’t make any smutty jokes about the title.

Review by Adam Woollaston
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2002