BEFORE: When in doubt, revert to chronological order, right? I didn't know very much about these four films with Tom Hardy in them, so I'm watching them in the order they were released. Umm, except for "Warrior", which was my lead-in - but the REST are in order, going back to 2002 for "The Reckoning" and then 2008 for today's film. It's a great chance to get a little insight on an actor's experience arc over the years, to realize which films he made before he bulked up for "Warrior" and "The Dark Knight Rises", and which came after.
I wish I could say the same for Guy Ritchie's filmography, that I was able to watch them in something close to chronological order, but obviously that wasn't an option. Still, I can go look at the list on the IMDB and see how he started out with "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", but then took a real detour with "Swept Away" after he met Madonna, so I suspect that "RocknRolla" represented a return to form after they split up. Then of course he went all big-budget Hollywood with "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", and then came the disaster that was "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword". He also directed two films I saw last year, "Aladdin" and "The Gentlemen", and one of those was ANOTHER return to form, the other makes no sense.
Tom Hardy carries over again from "The Reckoning".
THE PLOT: When a Russian mobster orchestrates a crooked land deal, millions of dollars are up for grabs, drawing the entire London underworld into a feeding frenzy at a time when the old criminal regime is losing turf to a wealthy foreign mob.
AFTER: I think it was watching "The Gentlemen" last year that made me realize that I still hadn't seen one key Guy Ritchie crime film set in the London underworld (Lunderworld?) but now that I've seen them all it sort of feels like there's a definite formula, and it's wearing thin. There's always some kind of MacGuffin, whether that's a diamond or a van full of pot or, in this case, a painting that we never get to see. There will be big, burly Russian mobsters, and a wide array of thieves, gamblers and ne'er-do-wells with nicknames like "One Two" and "Mumbles", and everybody will be very, very hard to understand due to their thick Cockney accents.
Also, everybody wants to be rich, whether that comes from thievery or performing the biggest hit for somebody else, or just plain being famous, like a rock star. Really, though, if you just replace "rock star" with "You Tube star", the painting with pot, and Gerard Butler with Matthew McConnaughey, then doesn't "RocknRolla" just become "The Gentlemen"? Discuss.
This is also supposedly about real estate somehow, as the two lead characters want to buy a London warehouse, because the UK real estate market is only going up up up, except it's apparently very complicated to buy property in the UK, you have to get or arrange something called "planning", and you also have to borrow money from a loanshark, and most likely that loanshark has the councillor in his back pocket, so you won't get the planning, but he will, and by that time even if he cancels your debt you still owe him money for some reason, so you're basically screwed. Umm, I think. Meanwhile he's negotiating with a Russian oligarch to build a new stadium, and he's promising to fast-track all that planning in exchange for seven million euros - pounds? Wait, this is a few years old so probably euros.
The only way to get ahead, it seems, is for One-Two and Mumbles to steal that seven million - twice - to pay off their debt, and also to give one of those seven millions back to the Russian's own female accountant, who surely must have her own reasons to want this money and discredit her employer at the same time, only I'm not sure if we ever find out what those reasons are. I get that everybody wants to get with Stella - OK, everybody except for her husband, and maybe also Handsome Bob - but she just didn't feel like a fully fleshed-out character. Explaining WHY she's doing what she's doing could have been a big help here. I don't think we ever find out what happens to her in the end, either, it just feels like Guy Ritchie forgot about her.
Meanwhile, that painting that the rich Russian loaned to the loanshark gets stolen by the loanshark's junkie (step?) son, who's also the rock star. His motivations are unclear, too, I mean, I guess he likes the painting and also wants to get back at his (step?) dad, but how would he even know that taking the painting would get his father in trouble with the Russian guy who (eventually) wants his painting back?
Also meanwhile, there's some kind of informant in the Lunderworld, who's been giving up information on everybody's crimes for years, and nobody can quite figure out who it is. Stella's husband claims to know, so that means everybody's got to go to this sort of wild sex party thing so that Handsome Bob can put his moves on the guy and see if he can get him to give up the info.
Not meanwhile, there's a big flashback chase sequence detailing how sideways things went when One-Two, Mumbles and Handsome Bob stole the seven million for the second (?) time and had to battle a pair of Russian mobsters. They eventually prevail, but those Russian mobsters have a way of coming back later and even more pissed-off.
It's a safe bet that everyone's going to betray everyone in the end, because really, it's every man for himself, almost all the time. But annoyingly it doesn't feel like everything really connects here, so that even after we learn who the informer is, even after the painting maybe makes its way back to the original owner, even after the bad guys we like prevail and the bad guys we don't like get their come-uppance, there are still so many questions, so many missing pieces. And then they tease a sequel at the end, and so far, 12 years later, that story has not been told. I'm sure there's a very long list of films that promised sequels ("Forrest Gump 2", "Roger Rabbit 2") that never happened, but it's still annoying.
Also starring Gerard Butler (last seen in "Angel Has Fallen"), Mark Strong (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "Selma"), Toby Kebbell (last seen in "Destroyer"), Idris Elba (last seen in "The Dark Tower"), Karel Roden (last seen in "The Bourne Supremacy"), Thandie Newton (last seen in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"), Dragan Micanovic (last seen in "Layer Cake"), David Bark-Jones, Matt King (last seen in "Paddington"), Geoff Bell (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Jeremy Piven (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Ludacris (last seen in "Hustle & Flow"), Gemma Arterton (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Jimi Mistry (last seen in "Blood Diamond"), Nonso Anozie (last seen in "The Laundromat"), David Leon, Bronson Webb (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Michael Ryan (last seen in "Pan"), Robert Stone, Jamie Campbell Bower (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Kelly George, Roland Manookian, Tiffany Mulheron, Johnny Harris, with archive footage of Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "The Human Stain") and a cameo from Guy RItchie.
RATING: 5 out of 10 hungry crayfish
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