Hey folks, Harry here to introduce John Robie's look at SNATCH, the film by Guy Ritchie... director of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELLS.. I believe this film is coming out at some point in the first quarter of next year from SONY... and when it does, damn if you ain't gonna be smiling like a charmed bastard when you walk out of the theater. I'm holding writing my review till I see it a second time cause I missed a great deal of the film the first time because of Moriarty and Robie laughing and exclaiming things at the top of their lungs. They're a pair of rude cine-goers... talking and laughing constantly. Of course... well, I can't say... people might jump to conclusions about their... relationship and habits. And that's their private business. Well here's Robie to try so hard to hang to his own pathetic beliefs. Actually, when he isn't exclaiming the genius of LUCKY NUMBERS or the mediocrity of THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY... John Robie comes across as being quite the astute filmgoer... hey... we are all flawed in each others' eyes... hell, I liked BLAIR WITCH 2... wtf do I know... right? hehehehe... Here's Robie and his first look at SNATCH!!!!
I’ll keep this quick. The workers just arrived with the special toilet and I’ve got three co-eds here just dying to use it. It’s gonna be great! It’s got this little button you can push that makes this motorized, I dunno, flexible thing comes out that wiggles and…
Pathetic.
Anyway, when the Ramones first started back in ’74 club owners complained that the band was only playing 45 minutes instead of the hour set agreed upon. The Ramones mumbled back that they were playing an hour’s worth of music in 45 minutes. Or maybe it was the Talking Heads that said that about the Ramones…anyway, that’s what Snatch feels like. Tons of tale, fast and well told and nary an ounce of fat in the entire thing. Eighty million characters, most all distinct and intriguing and balls out funny, twenty different story lines that manage to somehow come together and it’s all cut together like the film itself is on meth and there’s a whole lot of real loud, real electronic boom boom music behind it. So it’s basically garbage, right? It’s just pop, and we can always write off pop because pop is nothing.
Well, no.
No because you never write anything off, not unless it’s got the words "Troop" or "Beverly" or "Hills" or "Cop" or "III" in any sort of order in the title or it’s got "with special guest appearance by Crystal Gale" on the album sleeve. I realize the Crystal Gale thing is particular and that no one knows who she is. A lot of you have probably clicked past her on TNN on a late, lonely Saturday night. She’s the one with the miles long, black hair on that big geriatric country bear jamboree show. Anyway, don’t ask about the Crystal Gale thing because you’re not a therapist and I’m not well. So no, you don’t write anything off, and the snobs who’d write Snatch off because it’s just this big, loud, fast and fun monster, well…they suck, don’t they? Not gonna let us have any fun, are they? Nope, they’re not.
The story is about a guy named Turkish that gets in trouble with a dinged up Edsel of a man named Brick Top and a big diamond that goes missing and everyone’s looking for the diamond and everyone, EVERYONE, has a quirky nickname. It’s all very, very fast and a lot of it is very, very funny and it’s certainly the kind of thing that’s very, very off putting to some people and I’m definitely not one of those people. You got about six near-iconic characters here, one definitely iconic character (I’ll leave it to you to discover him), everyone gives a damn fine performance and the next schmo that says that Brad Pitt – who’s very good in the movie as a guy that’s very hard to understand – is nothing more than a pretty boy will be beat. Brad Pitt is not a pretty boy. I’m a pretty boy.
So many people shoot like this and edit like this simply for the sake of shooting like this and editing like this. It’s just cut, cut, cut because hey, those kids that watch the TV don’t have any attention span and we’ve got to keep their attention and what was I talking about? Ritchie’s first movie – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – could be accused of that kind of style over substance cacking. What you get with Snatch, though, is a sense that this is the way the story had to be told. It has to be quick, it has to just hit like lightning bolts. Zap zap zap and before you know it you’ve just been introduced to eight different characters and you know exactly what each of them wants and damn, you’re interested. That’s the kind of thing I applaud. That and vaginas, and vaginas can’t make movies. At least not very good ones.
Snatch is a great film. It might resemble the junk we see on television, but it certainly isn’t that junk. It’s kinetic for a reason. The reason is to tell a big, sweeping story with big, sweeping characters and to tell it with so much energy that the film threatens to jump out of the projector and spools itself right in front of your face. If this had been done any other way, it would have been done wrong.
I’ve annoyed you and now I’m going away. But really, it’s a damn fine film.
…though I could be totally wrong. After all, I’m the one asshole in the country that actually kinda liked Lucky Numbers. Please don’t tell anyone that. Think of my family. And think of the three co-eds in my bathroom.
John Robie
