Rock 'N' Rolla'

Overall Impressions
Now comes RockNRolla. Having hit rock bottom with his last venture, what goes down must come up right?! Apparently not. A friend of mine pointed out I'd got that logic wrong & Guy Ritchie has proved it.

Firstly, I do want to say, I'm not going to hold it against him. When he makes his next flick, I'll probably still march on & see it as soon as possible, in hope of another masterpiece. This however definitely is 'not' it.

In my head I piece together the story behind making this, though totally a hypothesis, I'm going to put it out there, as this is how I justify what has happened here: Having used up much of his credit, trust & groove with the high profile actors & producers, they aren't too willing to fund his films after the adventurous Revolver which failed with the masses, so he now had to fork out the funding himself. (I admit even I didn't get Revolver, but I didn't hate it for that. Most did though).

So, what could possibly be the safest film to make? Well that's pretty obvious, make something along the lines of his prior box-office smash hits. In turn, we try to analyse them & sum them up. Cockney gangster types, trying to make some quick money, with a bunch of awkward situations & moments that are funny, with dialogue that makes 'em all sound hard as nails. Now if that was the intention, then the film delivers just that.

Its a template version of a Guy Ritchie film. This may explain to you why the Synopsis is so short. There's really not much there beyond it. I mean yes there are a handful of cool moments, but for the most part, you're just following a bunch of characters that you don't get to know or care about jabbering on & acting 'cool'. Gerard Butler was the only hard-man that was engaging. Him & his buddy had a few moments, apart from this, I couldn't have cared who lived or died.

I had taken a friend with me to see this. About an hour in I whispered to him "This doesn't really seem to be going anywhere". He nodded & agreed. About half an hour he decided to leave. I didn't blame him. If I didn't have my own moral code of sitting through at least until the credits rolled, I would have left earlier than he did.

Later, as per Snatch & Lock stock, as though on cue, there was also a large action scene. As a standalone 5 minutes, it was pretty amazing. Then in the last 15 minutes, they got all these characters that we had seen but learnt very little about & took them to the same location, so that whatever was going on, could be 'resolved'. I'll admit it did redeem some interest near the end, but it was too late.

I know a handful of friends that will go to see this just to itch that need to see what the guy has come up with, but honestly, let it pass. What a waste of great talents. (Look on imdb Jeremy Pivens character didn't even get a name).