Snatch is Englishmen Guy Ritchie’s second feature-length directorial gig and, as with most of his work, deals with the English crime underground. In this film, gaggles of seedy mobsters find themselves chasing a gigantic diamond, somehow getting mixed up with an unlicensed boxing kingpin, a pair of boxing promoters, and gypsies in the meantime. As I’m sure you can tell from this description, the movie is a light-hearted (albeit violent) jab at the English organized crime underground.
As with most of Guy Ritchie’s other films (such as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Rock ‘N’ Rolla), he utilizes a unique directorial and story-telling style. The story is non-linear, but does involve some symmetry from beginning to end in this convoluted maze of characters chasing a diamond. Despite its lengthy list of characters, Ritchie does an excellent job of making sure we (the audience) keep everyone straight by using mainly two techniques. First, he gives at least one character in each group a distinctive trait to set them apart: the boxing kingpin as the bug-eye glasses, the “Jewish” diamond dealers wear their Yamakas, and the gypsies have their accents (and Brad Pitt). Second, Ritchie makes sure to introduce and reintroduce characters using his first person voice over by the main character (if you could really say there is a true main character), Turkish (Jason Statham). This technique fits within the style of the film, but is really used to cheat in some dry exposition and explain the story for us- not really great writing, but effective and stylistic nevertheless.
Also similar to Guy Ritchie’s other films is the sense of humor. Despite the story involving multiple murders, feeding human bodies to pigs, theft, arson, cons, and boxing without a license, Ritchie finds a way to make the whole story seem laughable. He makes the characters so goofy and such Lehman, that we Lehman (the audience) actually can sit back and laugh at their stupidity. Every ill that befalls the characters seems to be directly attributable to that character’s individual idiocy. As a result, we laugh at them, just like we laugh at someone who angrily punches a wall and hurts his hand. It’s funny because they did it to themselves. It’s not quite that simple, though. In order to keep this light tone, Ritchie carefully avoids showing anything too gruesome or gory, often not even showing people being killed, but just letting us assume it based on characters’ reactions. It may seem trivial, but not actually seeing the dead person makes all the difference. Seeing pain and suffering inherently elicits emotion in people. Knowing pain and suffering occurred just doesn’t have the same visceral response- something Ritchie uses to avoid drama and keep the story light.
Another talent of Ritchie’s that shines through in this film is writing very interesting characters with great, quirky banter. While these characters can all basically be considered similar or the same when you boil them down to their motivations and shake off all their bells and whistles (such as accents, appearances, which group they’re with, etc.), they are still very entertaining to watch. Mickey (Pitt), the scrappy, gypsy boxer, shines through for me. His slick, country dumb manner mixed with his hideously incomprehensible accent make every scene he is in both hilarious and challenging (only to understand what he’s saying), and Pitt does a great job in the role.
Ultimately, though, Ritchie’s films are the type you either hate or you love and Snatch is no different. It has an interesting, convoluted heist story line that is surprisingly easy to follow, some slapstick humor poking fun at gang related violence, action, and hordes of colorful characters all with similar motivations. If you’ve never seen a Guy Ritchie film, it’s worth checking one out and Snatch is a great example (although I slightly prefer Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels). However, if you’ve seen a Guy Ritchie film and you thought once is enough or you absolutely detest profanity and violence, then maybe you should pass on this one.
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Scale:
1- Lots of Better Movies at Blockbuster
2- Might Be Worth Renting If You’re Bored
3- Rent It When You Get to It
4- A Must Rent, at some point
5- Put It in Your Queue NOW!
My Rating: 3
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