SNATCH

(January 2001, U.S.)

Guy Ritchie's SNATCH is a British crime film filled with great comedic dialogue. Trouble is, you can barely understand much of this great comedic dialogue due to such thick accents, from cockney English to thick Irish coming from the mouth of American actor Brad Pitt. It's set in the London criminal underworld and contains two intertwined plots, the first one dealing with the search for a stolen 86-carat diamond, and the other with a small-time boxing promoter who's "in the pocket" of a ruthless gangster who has a taste for carrying out sadistic acts of violence against his enemies, particularly by feeding their body parts to hungry pigs. Like Ritchie's previous film, LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, you need to sit quietly and pay attention to every frame and every word in the hopes that you'll follow along well enough and take in the sheer pleasure of all its bloody nastiness. And like that previous film, there are many of the same elements of visual style, themes, and actors, including Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Alan Ford (the pig feeder!).

So, beginning with the infamous diamond, it's stolen by Franky "Four Fingers" (played by Benicio del Toro) for his boss, "Cousin Avi" (played by the late Dennis Farina). The theft itself is original in that the thieves dress up in identical fashion to the Hasidic Jews they're robbing, right down to the thick Jewish accents. It would seem that every underworld criminal in London is after this precious jewel as it repeatedly changes hands, changes hiding place, gets stolen, gets retrieved, and even ends up down the throat of a dog at one point. All the while, the blood of criminal violence is flowing like water around those who seek the prize. By the time it's all over and "Cousin Avi" ultimately fails to get the diamond, he's had just about enough of London's bullshit and returns home to New York empty-handed...at least for a while until the diamond is discovered in London again and he's back on a plane.

Meanwhile, the boxing promoter known as "Turkish" (Statham) is falling deeper into trouble with the pig-feeding gangster known as "Brick Top" as attempts at a successful fixed dive keep failing. Through chance and circumstance, he and his partner recruit "One Punch" Mickey O'Neil (Pitt) who proves so lethal in the ring, that his opponents keep going down before Mickey can fulfill his contract of going down in the fourth. These failed matches inevitably lead to arson against Pitt's low-life, trailer-trash family of gypsies, which in turn, awakens Mickey's hidden rage and thirst for vengeance, proving him (and his family) to be the best and most deadly threat against "Brick Top" and his goons. In the end, we can barely count the dead and the mortally-wounded, nor are we entirely sure of where the diamond has ended up and how it even got there. We simply know that we enjoyed the journey and the chase, and did our best to keep our ears open to follow along with whatever the hell these bloody men are saying to each other, or as "Turkish" puts it, "Did you understand a single word of what he just said?"

As a crime caper, SNATCH fulfills its promise to deliver the kind of blood, guts and violence you likely want from such material. What's truly irresistible is the dark comedy behind it all. The dialogue is quick and snappy, and the characters provide enough of it to make them more than just interesting. While it's not that much different from Ritchie's first offering, we can find new reasons to smile with American additions like Brad Pitt and Dennis Farina. Farina, in particular, brings a sweet element of American impatience and anger toward a country he simply cannot understand or tolerate. Pitt is almost incomprehensible with his terrible, over-the-top Irish accent, but he's clearly having so much fun with his role, that you can't help but smile and join in with him.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Cousin Avi: "Shut up and sit down, you big, bald fuck! I don't like leaving my own country, Doug, and I especially don't like leaving it for anything less then warm sandy beaches, and cocktails with little straw hats!"