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Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels


Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) r

Guy Ritchie's debut feature film is a story of four friends who try make some money in illegal gambling but the plan fails leaving them with a debt of 500k pounds and one week to pay. They learn about a robbery of weed sellers by accident and attempt to rob the robbers to make the money they need. There's a ton of other players involved and very few things go as planned.


Even being his debut film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is already a vintage Ritchie; wild and obscure characters, funny and foul dialogue and lots of visual gimmickry. Technically it's still little rough around the edges but the script is brilliant and while the actors aren't exactly the best they manage to bring their characters alive almost like they've been tailored just for them.

The film manages to tie up its multiple storylines together nice and tight (i.e. it doesn't feel forced but things seem to flow naturally). Characters are either stupid, weird or both and the British dry and non-PC humor worked for me. In a way it reminded me of early Tarantino done with British style and with far less pretense.

All in all very solid debut that has aged well. I'd wish Ritchie would still make movies as good as this.