LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) *** Great study in how to make contradictions work for you. Guy Ritchie's film offers cartoon-like violence in a milieu of hyper-realism (somehow accentuated by stop-and-go shooting at ten-minute intervals), outstanding individualized characters built from stereotype with a short extra twist or two, great performances by no-name actors (and Sting) not given enough room or lines to do anything with, a no-plot plot with enough major arteries to impress Agatha Christie, and a superficial sensibility that is both frustrating and enthralling. Then of course there are the excellent and appropriate musical selections (James Brown!). It's essentially the same technique used to best benefit in Snatch, but this film stands up fine on its own. Unless it is shot or macheted, or knocked out with a banana or pointed stick... The renvoi of a plot allows for metaphysical, or economic, musing on how the robbers and marijuana growers, and drug dealers, already have what they really need in the (stolen) ancient guns that pass through hands as easily as a fiver. All things come to he who waits, and go away from him too.
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