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Blood, guts and laughs
By
DREW McANULTY
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A wanted caravan and a stolen diamond bring together the biggest collection of gypsies, thugs and thieves ever collected for the screen in Guy Ritchie's Snatch.
In this ultra-violent mobster version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,
Ritchie interwines storylines and colourful characters like some psychotic
braiding hair on the severed head of his latest victim.
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Who are the real snatch and grab experts?
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Franky Four Fingers, Doug "The Head," Boris "The Blade" and "Bullet Tooth" Tony are just some of the fantastical personalities who thrive in a world that possesses no good and evil, just varying degrees of evil.
Like Ritchie's highly acclaimed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch is mayhem on a collision course, where the unseen forces of nature squeeze everyone and everything into an ever-tightening circle that eventually has no recourse but to explode.
And in the end there is no one to blame for the disaster but the characters themselves, all bumbling backstabbers who couldn't pull off a double-cross if it were handed to them on a silver platter.
And therein lies the wit and humour of Snatch. While we have no right to side with any of these thugs, their ineptness makes them likeable, even if they are all scumbags.
The exception to the rule might be Mickey (Brad Pitt), an Irish gypsy bare-knuckle boxing champ who is smarter than he appears, and who has a lot more to say than his confusing brogue allows anyone but his fellow "pikeys" to understand.
There is also Turkish (Jason Statham), a small-time boxing promoter who serves as our guide and narrator through the London underworld. Turkish and Mickey's lives become joined at the hip after their actions inadvertently land them in the bad books of mob leader Brick Top (Alan Ford), a character so nefarious Turkish and Mickey seem like choirboys by comparison.
But that's just one of the subplots in Snatch. There are also crooked Russians, a jewellers' conspiracy, a pissed off hitman, three thieves inspired by America's Dumbest Criminals and a pitbull that attacks and eats everything in sight.
Ritchie keeps the pace moving at a manic speed, the characters popping up and down like those groundhogs you try to bop at the carnival. He also incorporates a music video look to many of his shots but uses stark lighting and extreme, unflattering close-ups to ensure no one comes even close to being confused with a rock star, except maybe Keith Richards.
This is all grit, guts and blood -- and plenty of laughs.
Like Pulp Fiction, Snatch has us laughing at things we have no right to, and best of all, we don't feel guilty for doing so.
After all, they're all cartoon cutouts, and if you can't have fun at the expense of a cartoon cutout who's about to be fed to a bunch of hungry pigs, who can you laugh at?
(This film is rated AA)
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