Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

Give This One a Shot

Main Cast: Jason Flemyng, Nick Moran, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham

Director: Guy Ritchie

Plot Summary: Um… impossible. So much is going on that the plot twists and curls up into itself. Four blokes get into deep trouble gambling is a good start…

… and just a start. This is a very quirky, very English import that, while sometimes dumb, sometimes serious, a sort of black grinning humor lies below the surface of every scene of this action film.

Yes, action… or drama, not sure which. I think the action was meant to be cliché and over the top, or at least used not seriously. But I should at least touch on the plot in order to set things up. Eddy, Tom, Soap, and Bacon (the latter are names) are four young men on the make in London. Eddy is a genius at cards, so his idea is to collect 25,000£ (pounds) from each of his friends in order to sit in the ultimate card game of Hatchet Harry. What Eddy doesn’t know is that the whole game is a setup, with a hidden camera pointed right at his hand. He loses, and the muscle ominously warns him to come up with the money… or else.

Meanwhile, the muscles has two small-time thugs break into a mansion to steal a number of antique guns, which will bring in a pretty penny. The thieves do their thing but sell off a “few” of the old guns, not knowing that these beauties are probably worth more than the mansion they stole it from. These guns will turn up later, just one of the small threads that binds all the stories together. Did I mention the drug dealers that live next door to Eddy, and the ideas they give him to get some quick cash?

I can’t give anything else away, although it would be very hard to do so easily. Everything connects in an amusing way, with sly humor sliding things along from situation to situation. I hardly need to say that things do all work out… mostly. But never in a way that any of the characters would think, or perhaps want.

I admit I liked this film, liked its quirky humor, serious undertones, and just the way the low and high thieves act and interact among themselves. Anyone who is willing to give this a shot won’t be disappointed.