Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
12/5/08
It's good to be cool, but
not such an easy thing to achieve. How often do we get 5 minutes
into a movie and have to let out an internal sigh at the low energy level,
the commitment to settling for killing time while stringing scenes together?
You can go too far the opposite way, of course, slamming away at the audience
with camera tricks and self-consciousness until they put up a white flag
and beg to be released back into the afternoon sun. Somewhere in
between lies Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, which from its' opening shot
is consistently snappy, light on its' feet and clever even though the mildly
diverting plot never adds up to all that much. I guess you'd say
it's “pleasantly awesome”.
One Two (Gerard Butler) and
Mumbles (Idris Elba) are London hoods (sadly, no one ever calls them “Villains”)
who're looking to move up to nightclub owners. No proper bank would
lend them the money, of course, so they turn to Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson),
the elder statesman of London Gangsters. Lenny's got his fingers
in pretty much everything, and that goes double for manipulating the zoning
board, so out of simple spite he ensures that approval for their club is
revoked after the money's been spent, putting the two men in a position
where they NEED to pull off a job to pay him back. Into One Two's
life walks Stella (Thandie Newton) a bored accountant who gets her thrills
setting up such jobs at her clients' expense. Current client:
Uri (Karel Roden), a Russian mobster looking to build a sports stadium,
who's paying off Lenny to get that all-important zoning. Except that
his bribe money is stolen in transit-by One Two and Mumbles. Uri
is distraught: what could cause such misfortune? Perhaps it's
because he loaned his Lucky Painting to Lenny: he needs that painting
back! But the painting is missing, stolen by Lenny's presumed-dead
son-in-law, rock star Johnny Quid (Tody Kebbell). While Lenny dispatches
his enforcer Archie (Mark Strong, our narrator) to turn over every rock
in town and find that painting, One Two deals with trouble closer to home.
It turns out that his best friend Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) isn't quite
who he thought he was...
And that's only the beginning
of RocknRolla's twists and turns: the entire point of the
enterprise is to keep its' plot wheel spinning in new and (it hopes) outrageous
directions. Truth be told, the movie's about 20 minutes or so too
long and its' momentum doesn't always hold. But when it's at its'
best, the sheer energy Ritchie puts on the screen is a wonder to behold.
Knowing when and how to cut in a movie like this is most of the battle,
and the editing of sequences like Archie's opening tour of the relevant
underworld players and a glorious sex scene where One Two and Stella assume
about a dozen positions in about 5 seconds is flawless. Personal
favorite: late in the game, Johnny Quid's been wounded and he and
his managers Mickey (Chris Bridges) and Roman (Jeremy Piven) are being
led to their doom by hired goons. Johnny can't do anything about
it, but instead talks the suits through doing his fighting for him while
we constantly cut back and forth between what is happening and what Johnny
explains WILL happen. It's like watching filmed intelligence, very
cool stuff.
And there are lots of laughs
as well, particularly in the subplot where One Two must face the shocking
truth that not only is Handsome Bob gay, but he's always fancied his best
friend. A lingering question of exactly how One Two dealt with this
information on the eve of Bob's scheduled incarceration leads to a glorious
punchline, all the better because Butler plays the scene for all it's worth.
We haven't seen him do much comedy, but he shows a real knack for deflating
his superhuman macho exterior.
Performances are sharp across
the board: Wilkinson, buried beneath old guy makeup, is memorably
hateful and Strong continues his breakout year (suits love that guy!) in
a role that kinda sneaks up on you. Kebbell could be following close
behind: Johnny Quid spends most of the movie high in one form or
another, but he never ceases to be cool, and when he finally comes face-to-face
with his evil father figure, there's real electricity between them.
Newton plays icy better than anyone around, the challenge is always to
find the right fit for that skill, and the utterly joyless yet oh so cool
Stella is a great role for her. I'll always love Roden for his work
in the criminally underrated 15 Minutes, and it's fun to see him
here as a guy in a sweater vest, albeit one who'll still break your leg
in four places if he feels the need.
What the movie's missing
is a truly empathetic character: yeah, they're all cool customers,
but they also pretty much have whatever they get coming to them, so while
we root for everyone to outlast Lenny, there's not a lot of personal investment
in anyone's fate. I think I'd have liked the movie about the same
if pretty much anyone had been left standing at the end, never a good sign.
But while it zips along, RocknRolla is a lot of fun: the end
credits even have the audacity to promise a sequel. Hey, to be this
cool, you've got to be confident. |
