Rocknrolla Guy Ritchie

Rocknrolla is the same movie Guy Ritchie has made his entire career, except not nearly as good. It's not even a third as good as Snatch. It's not half as good as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. There's your short review.

Long form analysis follows!

What we have here is a case of Jackie Brown syndrome. When Quentin Tarantino (a man whose name Guy desperately wants to see his name next to in the history books, preceded by the words "The English...") made Reservoir Dogs and followed it up with Pulp Fiction, everyone was expecting Junior Year to be something so astounding it wouldn't just force every other filmmaker at the academy to hang their heads in shame, it would force the dean to drink the entire bottle of scotch he hides under the desk and burn the f***ing campus to the ground while raping sorority girls as he marveled at the flame's harsh but powerful beauty.

I'm happy to report that the dean 'o film never lost his job, and the girls of sigma sigma stupid never lost their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed innocence. Because instead of something AWESOME, Quentin gave us Jackie Brown. (To his credit, he did come back from the creative dead, like a coke-fueled zombie Jesus, with Uma Thurman as his harlot Mary. And instead of 3 days, it only took him... 6 years. Better late than never.)

Rocknrolla is that junior slump, that pony in need of a new trick. Much like his American counterpart, Guy became complacent in his success. But while Quentin is obviously insane enough to branch out and spend his nights executive producing transfers of martial arts films for the US market and discover the greatest horror director of our generation, you just know that Guy Ritchie could and would make the same movie about the same English petty criminals who get into the same wacky situations with the same London kingpin who demands the return of a macguffin (this time, it's a lucky painting that belongs to a bloodthirsty Russian).

You'll notice I'm not really getting into the meat and potatoes of this movie in this so-called review. That's because there aren't any. It's the exact same Guy Ritchie movie as before, but Brad Pitt and Jason Statham weren't on call, so they hit up The Dude From 300. And there are some pretty sweet guitar solos.

Also, just so we're clear, I'm an absolute sucker for this kind of movie. In fact, I'd watch the hell out of this movie over and over again as long as it stays fresh. It's not bad, really, it's just stale.

So get out there, Guy. Do something crazy. You've earned it. Go make something only a man with your clout could get the funding for, and laugh all the way to the bank when it's a smash hit. Then go discover the next great director in your genre. Then go experiment in any genre EXCEPT for horror, because we all see what that did to Quentin's clout. And in about 5-8 years, after you've done all that, come back to this stuff, when it seems fresh again, and I'll be back in my seat talking about how awesome it all is, and those sorority girls will have to watch out for that sloshed dean with the blowtorch and the box of trojans.