Rock N Rolla Review

Disclaimer: This movie is only playing in NYC/LA/Toronto right now, opens nationwide October 31.

RocknRolla is Guy Ritchie's return to his wheelhouse genre of british crime flicks that stylishly inflect comedy with absurd violence and an intertwining plot causing absolute chaos amongst the characters and wrapping it all up in a tidy little bow. The film is loosely based off of Ritchie's take of the current day London crime scene as Russian billionaire's are migrating in drove's to the UK where they are buying up expensive real estate and taking control of a weakened monarchy.

It's hard to pinpoint a true main character in this movie as all of the cast seems to get their due time. Gerard Butler (300) is the closest thing to a protagonist as he plays a petty criminal named One Two who is knee deep in a plot filled with greed, deception, corruption, and at times plain stupidity. It's very hard to describe everything that happens in this film without spoilers and the fact that every storyline intersects at some point, a review on the plot would be nearly pointless. Instead, I will talk about the performances and Ritchie's overall cinematic vision for this film.

Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Tom Hardy, Toby Kebell, and Mark Strong deliver solid perf's really shouldering the bulk of the film. Mark Strong will be playing Lord Blackwood in Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes flick and you can tell in this film that he is a perfect villain and will do a great job with it. Butler is finally doing an action film after 300 and a line of romantic comedy flops, and has some very good fight scenes in classic Guy Ritchie fashion. Thandie Newton is the seductress of the movie and is very sexy in it, definitely rod worthy. Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Ludacris also have a few scenes and are great, but very under utilized which is to be expected in such a big ensemble cast.

Overall, if you liked Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, than you know exactly what to expect from RocknRolla. If you are not familiar with Guy Ritchie's style or english film's in general than this could be a hit or miss as the plot will take a few views just to fully understand. There is talk that this will be turned into a 3 film franchise and the door is certainly left open for a sequel. There are just so many characters and storylines that they could easily make another movie to explain everything. I recommend checking this one out in theater's because the cinematic flair will be lost on a translation to the small screen, but Snatch still remains to be Ritchie's best movie.

7/10