Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: Review

Guy Ritchie’s first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, is an energetic and fast-paced crime caper that’s barely aged.

That said, it was only a few years after I watched Snatch with my mates, that I finally saw Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. And experiencing those movies in that order might have been a mistake because, although I quite enjoyed Ritchie’s low-budget miracle production, I couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t up to snuff when compared to his sophomore feature. Don’t get me wrong, Lock, Stock… is a fascinating little indie picture, and it does feature plenty of the style and wit that would be further developed in Ritchie’s following movies. But it’s also pretty rough around the edges and doesn’t exactly benefit from starring plenty of first-time thespians and inexperienced non-actors.

Of course, all this isn’t the movie’s fault, but mine. So keep in mind that if you plan on soaking up all of Ritchie’s films for the first time, you should watch them in order. Lock, Stock… first, and then Snatch. Don’t make the same mistakes that I did!

Anyway, I digress. The fact of the matter is, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is one of the most important British films in recent memory, or at least one of the most influential. In the same way that Tarantino inspired a bunch of copy-cats in the U.S., Ritchie’s film ended up influencing a ton of similar pictures on the other side of the pond, which tried to capture that je ne se quoi that transformed this “little movie that could” into quite the phenomenon. Thus, in the 90s we got many movies centred on gangsters, mouthy criminals and violent thieves, but none of them could compare to Lock, Stock... Well, maybe only Snatch. But only because it’s better.

The main characters of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels are Eddie (Nick Moran), Tom (Jason Flemyng), Soap (Dexter Fletcher), and Bacon (Jason Statham), a quartet of small-time criminals who mainly spend their days trying to sell stolen goods on the streets. A new opportunity arises, though, when the first of the bunch decides to enter a high-stakes poker game run by the infamous Hatchet Harry Lonsdale (P.H. Moriarty). Eddie attends the event and gambles all of his –and his friends’– money, but because the game is rigged, he loses everything.

Thus, he is told by Harry’s muscle, Barry “the Baptist” (Lenny McLean), that they’ve got one week to get the money, otherwise they’ll kill them, and get Eddie’s father’s (singer Sting) bar to boot. But thankfully Eddie manages to come up with a plan: after listening to his neighbours through his deceptively thin walls, he tells his friends they should steal from them and their leader, tough guy Dog (Frank Harper). It turns out, Dog and his men are about to rob a group of weed growers who work for an intimidating drug baron called Rory Breaker (Vas Blackwood). But because the plot couldn’t be as simple as this, we also have a couple of pretty useless thieves called Gary (Victor McGuire) and Dean (Jake Abraham), as well as a dangerous hitman named Big Chris (then-football star Vinnie Jones) and his son Little Chris (Peter McNicholl). How they get involved in the story, I’ll let you find out.

Now, if Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels sounds a bit too complex and chaotic, that’s because it is. But at the same time, that’s part of its charm. The way Ritchie mixes and matches all these characters and plots is rather satisfying, making great use of ironic coincidences and death in order to make the viewer laugh. He does the same in Snatch, and although I do find that latter movie funnier, Lock, Stock… is quite entertaining as well. And even though it’s rather easy to get lost in the plot and confused with all the characters –there are about twenty-two speaking parts in the film, and they’re all pretty important– one does end up getting the vibe of it all. It almost seems like Ritchie wants to confuse us, so we can start feeling the movie instead of trying to make sense of it.

Which is all well and good, because Lock, Stock… is the kind of film that might fall apart if one tries to think about all its plot contortions too hard. It’s better to just enjoy it. Enjoy the witty one-liners, the strong characterisations, and the funny banter between the protagonists. There’s not one boring bit or workmanlike sequence to be found; some critics accused Lock, Stock… at the time of being “style over substance”, as if that were a bad thing. The style is the whole point of the movie, and it’s the style which informs the structure of the story and even the characters’ behaviour.

That’s because Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is not a naturalistic film. Its characters don’t talk like normal people but like snarky and silly Guy Ritchie creations. And many scenes are presented in the most stylistic way possible, making use of slow motion, fast motion, split screens, funny subtitles (we don’t all get Cockney Rhyming Slang, especially outside the U.K.) and freeze frames to make a point, throw a punch line or convey a particular feeling. Moreover, Ritchie’s camera moves constantly, showing that even this early in his career, he had a knack for creative blocking and interesting visuals.

Nevertheless, he was also limited by the movie’s budget, and it sometimes shows. Most of the cast had little to no experience acting, which results in stilted and unconvincing line deliveries (which is particularly grating considering the high quality of the dialogue). From the main quartet, Jason Statham (in his first role) and Dexter Fletcher (yes, the director of Rocketman) are the most convincing. And I also enjoy Vinnie Jones’ performance, which is a bit more subdued and intimidating than his role in Snatch. Additionally, it’s rather interesting to watch someone like Sting in a grimy, violent picture such as this, even if his role, though important, is somewhat limited.

Ah, yes, the violence. Lock, Stock… is indeed a violent movie, but not in the same way as a Quentin Tarantino film might be. Ritchie doesn’t linger on the violence, preferring to show us the consequences of his shootouts, while also maintaining a rather light tone. Snatch is jokier and more absurd, but Lock, Stock… never turns into a sour affair, keeping the audience chuckling through its ironic coincidences and the clumsiness of some of its characters. The world of the movie is gritty and dirty, shown through a yellow and grey lens, but at the same time, it never feels particularly realistic or pessimistic. It’s like a slightly heightened interpretation of our world, full of death but also humour and insanities.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is undeniably a product of its time, but I also believe it’s a movie that’s barely aged in the last two decades (except for the use of a couple of homophobic slurs, which of course aren’t acceptable nowadays). It’s a tightly edited, fun and memorable movie that, despite its shortcomings –a confusing plot, a bunch of inexperienced actors giving flat performances– ends up being incredibly entertaining. Plus, one can’t deny the way it influenced other films, and even the rest of Ritchie’s career, at least until a couple of years ago. Snatch might be funnier and slicker, but Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels arrived first and put Guy Ritchie on the map.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is now available to watch on digital and on demand.

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