Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Guy Ritchie Directed British Crime Caper
The surprise hit film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was directed by Guy Ritchie and features an appearance by Sting.
Four East London lads get into big trouble when they lose a rigged card game against Hatchet Harry, (P.H. Moriarty) and end up owing him five hundred thousand pounds in one week. Unless they can come up with the cash in time, Hatchet's menacing henchman Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean) will start taking fingers as collateral. What follows is a violent and fast moving film involving some tough and shady characters in London's seedy underworld.
Directed by Guy Ritchie, the movie introduces the audience to four friends. Eddy, (Nick Moran) Tom, (Jason Flemyng) Bacon, (Jason Statham) and Soap (Dexter Fletcher) pool their savings to enter the card game with Hatchet Harry. Once Eddy tells the others that they are in hock for half a million pounds, they come up with a plan to steal from the unhinged thieves in the flat next door who intend to grab cash and some low grade marijuana from a group of paranoid cannabis growers, who are distributing the drug out of their apartment.
In an unrelated crime, two low level criminals from the north of England steal a pair of antique muskets for Hatchet Harry, but he is not happy when they sell them to Nick the Greek (Stephen Marcus) who deals in stolen property and is connected to Eddy and his buddies.
An unstable debt collecter who works for Hatchet named Chris (Vinnie Jones) pays a visit to Eddy's father J.D. (Sting). Chris has an ultimatum for J.D., (who owns a bar) either you hand over your bar to Hatchet, or Eddy will suffer the consequences if he fails to repay his debt. The role of a brutal enforcer was played to perfection by Jones, not only is he a man who doesn't hesitate to use physical violence but he also has a son, a young criminal in training, on whom he dotes.
The heat is on Eddy and the others. With very little time remaining they pull off their scheme with success, and amazingly none of them get hurt. The marijuana growers are not as fortunate, however, and the loss of the weed puts them in greater peril with Rory Breaker, (Vas Blackwood) a psychotic crime baron who gathers his men together to get the cannabis back. A shootout quickly follows in which they are all killed, and the lives of the two burglars are snuffed out almost as quickly as they kill Hatchet and Barry the Baptist.
Although the story is an assortment of unlawful activities by different criminals, all of the characters cross each other's paths during the film. The sharp and witty Cockney dialogue may confuse American viewers but the actions of the characters definitely speak louder than words. Alan Ford is the narrator and is also the actor who plays the brutal crime boss "Brick Top" in Snatch. As for Eddy and his three partners in crime, they survive without a scratch on them, but they are also flat broke. Tom is asked to get rid of the shotguns which they managed to hide from the police, but at the last minute it is discovered that they are worth more than two hundred thousand pounds. In the final scene, Tom is hanging over a bridge with one hand on a lamppost and the other clutching the old weapons. And then his cell phone rings, and it's a very important call. But he can't reach the phone.......
The film was dedicated to Lenny McLean, who passed away from cancer in 1998 shortly before the film's release.
