All of this Over a Caravan

For Guy RitchieThis British filmmaker has been working in the industry for practically his whole life, and has practically created a genre of crime comedies all his own., Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was the moment he came onto the Hollywood scene. It was a statement. It’s not that gritty crime flick hadn’t been done before. Hell, gritty, British crime flicks had been done before, but tonally they were considerably different. They were dark as hell, and usually involved the protagonist meeting an unfortunate end at the end of their journey for some kind of “crime doesn’t pay” message. Rarely was the guy we were following, who was someone we were supposed to root against, allowed to walk away anywhere close to happy.

Ritchie changed the game. His low budget first film, made on about $1.8 Mil, proved to be a different kind of take on the genre. Yes, we were following criminals, but we didn’t mind as much because everyone in the film that we focused on were criminals. It was criminals screwing over other criminals, bigger and smaller fish all playing in the same pool, and if one fish ate another, that was all just part of the game. We could root for the bad guys because there were worse guys out there, and morality didn’t really play a factor in the proceedings.

Plus, the film was funny. It was as much a crime comedy and it was a crime drama, and that mix of elements, all backed by a rocking soundtrack and Ritchie’s already deft hand with action, actors, and writing, brought it all together. So when Ritchie had the Hollywood clout to make a second film, Snatch, and he could make it his way, he functionally did the same kind of film all over again, but slightly bigger. Plus, he brought along Jason Statham, who was basically discovered for Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and who quickly became something of a lucky charm for the director.

Snatch follows Turkish (Statham), a low-level boxing promoter who has a solid fighter, Gorgeous George (Adam Fogerty), that he plans to put into a match against a fighter from crime boss, and all around nasty piece of work, Brick Top (Alan Ford). The trick is that Turkish has to follow through on the fight or he’ll end up owning Brick Top, and once you own Brick Top you never stop owing Brick Top. Things take a turn, though, when Turkish sends his associate, Tommy (Stephen Graham), backed by Gorgeous George over to negotiate the purchase of a new camper (which Turkish would use as his office) from a group of Irish Travelers, led by Mickey (Brad Pitt). The deal goes south, and Mickey says (in a fabulous mumbled accent) that he’ll make it square if George can beat him in a bare-knuckle boxing fight. George fails, ends up in the hospital with a broken jaw, and Turkish is now in the red with Brick Top and also out the money for the camper.

While all of this is going on, there’s also the matter of a very big diamond that was stolen from a diamond market in Antwerp. The leader of that gang of thieves, Franky Four-Fingers (Benicio del Toro), has a deal with his New York connection, Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina), to hock the diamond and get a cool payout. The only trouble is that one of the guys on his team rats him out, and the Russians in London, where Franky is making a stop-over, are ready for him. The diamond then ends up out in the wild, with multiple factions trying for it, and somehow it all ends up back with Brick Top… and because of that, back with Turkish as well.

To be honest, Snatch isn’t nearly as well crafted a story as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. There’s a lot going on in the film with all the various factions having all of their own storylines (the Jewish diamond dealers who want the diamond, a local pair of pawn brokers who try to steal the diamond, the Russians who want it, and then Brick Top as well) and it makes for a big, rambling mess of a film. It’s honestly a pretty shaggy story all around, and while elements all connect and bounce off each other, the film struggles with narrative momentum. It’s much more of a “and then” style of story, where this happens “and then” that happens, without even becoming a tight and interesting narrative.

A big part of the problem with the film is that the story about Turkish, Mickey, and Brick Top legitimately has nothing to do with the rest of the film. Turkish is our main character, and he’s the closest we get to a protagonist in large part because his hands are the cleanest of everyone in this underworld. He’s actually a legitimate boxing promoter who wants to put up clean, proper boxing matches. It just so happens that the only fights he can get for his boxers are with less than reputable establishments, and it puts him in something of a bind. If the film focused more on Turkish and his troubles it would be very interesting.

That’s in no small part because Turkish’s storyline also has the best actors in the film. Statham is great, as always, effectively playing “the Statham character”, which was already solidifying around him. But it’s a good performance, and Statham is great in this kind of role. Graham is solid as Tommy, playing him a little innocent and kind of stupid, but he’s a character you do enjoy. And then Brad Pitt goes for broke as Mickey, doing this wild, mumbling performance that is magnetic. You can’t help but watch him, and legitimately you wish more of the film focused on these characters.

The diamond plotline is the main story, though, and because it has nothing to do with Turkish you care about it a whole lot less. It’s crosses and double-crossing among a bunch of characters that don’t matter to our protagonist and his friends. In fact, most of these characters never meet or interact with Turkish, functionally making them performers in a different film from the one Turkish is in. Everything does eventually crossover in the final minutes of the movie, but by then it’s also all over and you hardly care about what you just watched.

And yet the film is fun to watch. Yes, it’s very shaggy and, yes, it doesn’t hang together well as a whole, but moment to moment it proves to be a lot of fun. Snatch moves at a break-neck speed, with the film cutting and interweaving between all its various storylines without ever slowing down. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s also fun watching all these low- and mid-level goons go back and forth with each other while the film takes an irreverent tone about all of it. The film is silly, and that’s part of why even though it’s not the best story it is a fun watch.

Snatch is a lesser effort for Ritchie, and it shows that while he knew his genre well he was still trying to figure out the best way to tell stories within it. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels is the stronger narrative, but Snatch has the carefree charm and star power to make it the more interesting watch. The best way to watch it is as a double-header with Ritchie’s first film so you can see the writer/director evolve and find his voice in his earliest works. Both are worth the investment even if one has a stronger story than the other.