4. Mumbles - RocknRolla
Guy Ritchie announced himself with an absolute belter of a movie. In many ways he's been trying to live up to the high standards established by Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels ever since. Snatch was even better, but was dismissed as more of the same - the less said about Swept Away the better - and then his sharp left turn with Revolver seemingly drove his career off a cliff and backed over the twitching corpse a few times just to make sure it was well and truly dead. I love Revolver, but then I'm a pretentious contrarian. I like that it's working on several levels at once, but I'm aware that I'm the only person who does. When I went to see it at the cinema there was only myself and some very enthusiastic tumbleweed in the auditorium. Mr. Ritchie needed to do something drastic to pull his ship back on course. RocknRolla was Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels with all the caffeine and all the sugar taken out. Diet Lock Stock for a mainstream audience, if you will. Instead of crafting well-defined characters Ritchie just throws some high-profile actors at a wall, metaphorically, and hopes something will stick. It's a great cast, but none of them really get to do anything. One of those actors standing around waiting for something to do is Idris Elba, and mid way through the movie he gives up completely, almost as if he's opting out of any possible sequel right before our eyes. This was a cheeky-cockney-geezer-gangster movie too far and I'm glad that Mr. Ritchie is applying his myriad skills to something else these days. Watching his very flat, disinterested performance here, I'd wager Idris is too.