A crime farce about separate but not necessarily opposing groups of felons on a chain-reaction collision course in London's East End. And a prime piece of evidence of the music-video-ization of movies. Everything in it is just for show, most of all the convoluted, contrived, and confusing plotline. Even with a narrator to explain who's who, it is difficult to keep track of the connections and relationships around the incestuous circle of crooks. Difficult, at any rate, at the hectic clip at which the events unfold. The frisky, frolicky, flashy direction (the debut of Guy Ritchie, past director of commercials and rock-band promos) is full of tricks and gimmicks: freeze-frames, fast-motion, fish-eye lenses, and so forth. The color is drained to within half a step of sepia. The characters and their speech, by way of contrast, are of the type that are often described as colorful. The strong-arm man with the monicker of Big Chris (the worried-looking British footballer Vinnie Jones) emerges from the crowd as the solitary one of them worthy of respect and support, although under normal circumstances, or under circumstances that bore any resemblance to any form of reality, he would not score points for Concerned Parenting by deliberately ramming another car at top speed with his young son rattling around beside him in the passenger seat. But nothing in this movie is ever done the easy way, the smart way, or the likely way if it can be done the gaudy way instead. With Jason Flemyng, Nick Moran, Steven Mackintosh, P.H. Moriarty, and Sting. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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