In 1998, director Guy Ritchie began to leave his mark on the film industry with some help from his debut movie, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. While discussing this early part of his career with the online publication Film Threat, Ritchie made a surprising confession. He suggested that his debut movie would be one of just two British crime pictures he’d direct in his career, saying, “I’ll do one more film in this genre, and then I won’t do another one.”
That second film ended up becoming another classic, Snatch. Then, something strange happened on Guy Ritchie’s path toward directorial infamy; he went back on his word and kept producing more British crime pictures. And honestly, out of all the broken promises emanating from the world of cinema, this was one everyone was happy Ritchie didn’t stick to. Let’s explore how Guy Ritchie reinvigorated the world of British crime movies.
The Guy Ritchie Crime Movie Formula
Foul Language + Kinetic Action + Coincidence = The Reinvigorated British Crime Picture
Most of Guy Ritchie’s British crime films have been successful, primarily because he has a specific formula he returns to repeatedly. First and foremost, he starts with a cast of colorful characters, most of whom are generally saddled with unusual nicknames to ensure audiences don’t forget who they are. We’re talking monikers like “Brick Top,” “Boris the Bulled-Dodger,” and “Handsome Bob,” to name but a few of the more memorable ones, all of which are easier for the audience to keep in mind than their general American counterparts like Jimmy or Jack.
With so many characters battling for screen time, another rule of Guy Ritchie’s crime cinema is ensuring every significant character has a series of memorable scenes or lines to help them stand out. Lines like: “When you dance with the devil, you wait for the song to stop” or “You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.” Let’s face it: most of these characters won’t make it to the end of the film, so they need to leave something behind for us to remember them by, and quips are usually it.
Another popular trope in Guy Ritchie’s gangster films is that the older the gangster is, the scarier they are. Older mobsters have been around far longer than their contemporary counterparts; as such, they have lived through some… well, you know. Many of Ritchie’s gangster pictures are framed around the young guard of the underground criminal element trying to break away from the past and upset the old guard, which, no matter your field of employment (legal or not), is a relatable feeling.
One of the classic film constructs that Ritchie often utilizes in his crime pictures is what another infamous British filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, referred to as a MacGuffin. All the characters in the film typically look to get their hands on this valuable item. It could be a gigantic priceless diamond, a pair of antique shotguns, or even a beloved painting. Anything that can easily pass back and forth between our “good” criminals and our “not so good” criminals while keeping the audience engaged and entertained.
Last but not least, each Guy Ritchie British crime picture generally involves an element of random chance. Sometimes, the universe isn’t on your side, and when you’ve chosen a life of crime, it probably shouldn’t be. As such, many of the plotlines in Ritchie’s films are often upended when an accident or surprise throws everyone off course and typically stuns our fan-favorite characters with an outrageous reversal of fortune. Now that we know how Guy Ritchie’s British crime pictures work let’s look closely at each one.
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels Created the Guy Ritchie Formula
Released: 1998
Guy Ritchie launched his career with a low-budget crime comedy that smashed everyone’s expectations. It has since become one of the most beloved gangster movies ever. When Ritchie debuted, the British gangster genre had more or less gone dormant, but after? Well, every wannabe British filmmaker began copying his style. Mostly, those copycats all came up wanting, but Ritchie’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels has continued to age well.
Compared to where some of Ritchie’s other gangster pictures would go in the future, this one was simplicity itself. The premise involved a card shark and his closest friends pooling money to enter a high-stakes poker game against London’s most dangerous cardshark. When Eddie (Nick Moran) loses the game, he puts himself and his best mates (including Jason Statham, who is making his acting debut) in significant debt. The only way out is for this group of wannabe criminals to undertake a comedy of errors and unknowingly intertwine themselves further in London’s underground.
Lock, Stock might be Guy Ritchie’s oldest film, but it’s arguably the one that has aged the best. It still contains great jokes, an unbelievable soundtrack, and kinetic performances from not just folks like Jason Statham and Jason Flemming but also (former) footballer Vinnie Jones, who also launched his acting career with this film. Yes, Ritchie’s unconventional style is almost unrefined here, but that gives the movie a certain “je ne sais quoi” that some of his later films lack.
Snatch Broke the Sophomore Slump
Released: 2000
When making his follow-up film, Snatch, Guy Ritchie took everything that worked from Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and turned the dial to 11. Most noticeably, now that he was a bankable name in cinema, Ritchie upped the ante with his casting, booking big-name Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro alongside his stable of go-to actors from the first film, like Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham, the latter of whom was tasked with the leading role in this picture.
Snatch is more or less about a series of interweaving narratives that revolve around a priceless stolen diamond. While all of these storylines threaten to spin wildly out of control at one point or another, Guy Ritchie manages to wrangle them all together and, with the help of his talented cast, creates a movie that, while it might not be quite as powerful overall as the film that came before, is perhaps even more entertaining.
Snatch’s increased budget allowed Guy Ritchie to recreate Lock, Stock, only on a bigger scale. It’s glossier and even more stylistic than Ritchie’s previous film as he plays around with technical aspects of production like camera angles, shutter speed, and kinetic editing (watch the fist fights for proof). Some might argue that Snatch is a little overcooked, but Ritchie has always been a filmmaker searching for flash or substance, and in that sense, Snatch might be the perfect version of his unique style.
Revolver
Released: 2005
As mentioned off the top, Guy Ritchie promised that he’d make two crime movies and then retire from the genre for good. Well, he kept to his word, except for that last part. Following Snatch, Ritchie experimented with a remake of Swept Away starring his wife, Madonna. The less said about that all-time cinematic failure (both the marriage and the film), the better. Reeling from the first gigantic mistake of his career, Ritchie returned to something a bit more comfortable, a British crime picture masquerading as a psychological thriller in Revolver.
Featuring actors long associated with the gangster genre, like Ray Liotta and Vincent Pastore, Guy Ritchie paired these genre institutions with his creation, Jason Statham (who is, surprisingly, not bald here), in the primary role. As for the plot, it’s a complete mess and revolves (excuse the pun) around Statham’s confidence trickster bent on revenge and looking to get a little help in his gambling ways from the Jewish Mysticism of the Kabbalah.
No one quite knew what to make of Revolver when it was released. And in a certain sense, they still don’t. The film has since seen a director’s cut released, which has improved its reputation and turned it into a cult classic for those who could follow the plot. In a certain sense, it’s admirable that while resorting to a genre he felt more familiar with, Ritchie tried his damndest to make this film nothing like Lock, Stock, or Snatch. And if anything, it taught him the important lesson that doing so was a mistake.
RocknRolla
Released: 2008
After falling flat on his face twice in a row, Guy Ritchie returned to his original formula with RocknRolla, a film that, while comforting in its similarities to Ritchie’s first two films, never reaches their levels. That being said, the film does feature a star-studded UK cast that includes Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Thandiwe Newton, and Mark Strong, most of whom were still in the early process of turning themselves into superstars.
RocknRolla returns to the narrative throughline of Ritchie’s earlier films with a pattern that slowly brings together a series of divergent threads. The problem is that this film is just never quite as interesting or exciting as what came before. The film comes together in the end, but the way in which the distinct MacGuffins from Ritchie’s previous films are replaced here with real estate scams holds this film back from being truly memorable.
Had Guy Ritchie not been so concerned with breaking away from what used to work for him in the earliest stages of his career, he perhaps could have refined RocknRolla into a more compelling film. But ten years into his career, he was still trying to establish himself as more than just a British crime picture director. Eventually, he’d embrace it again.
The Gentlemen
Released: 2019
After a lengthy break during which Guy Ritchie left for Hollywood and began making films like Sherlock Holmes and the live-action remake of Aladdin, he finally returned to the British gangster movie in 2019 with The Gentlemen. And it wasn’t a moment too soon. With The Gentlemen, Ritchie finally delivered an elevated take on the genre he had been searching for since Snatch, creating a more refined and (surprisingly) restrained film.
Like all his crime pictures, The Gentlemen involves a web of interlinking plots and characters. These all circle around an American drug lord in England, played by Matthew McConaughey, who is looking to offload his marijuana empire and, by doing so, kicks off a chain of events in England’s underworld. McConaughey’s inspired performance is bolstered by adding a brilliant supporting cast that includes Colin Farrell, Michelle Dockery, and Hugh Grant, all seemingly having the time of their lives.
The dialogue in The Gentlemen is delightful, and this film’s communal sense of fun is as apparent as it was at the earliest stages of Ritchie’s career. Some believe that The Gentlemen might be Ritchie’s best work. Time will ultimately tell, but at the very least, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, as well as Snatch.
Wrath of Man
Released: 2021
Similar to how Guy Ritchie tried to adapt his crime picture formula earlier in his career with Revolver, he attempted again more recently with Wrath of Man. Unfortunately, he was no more successful this time than in the prior attempt. While ostensibly a crime picture, Wrath of Man eventually strips its story of all the lighthearted energy that defined Ritchie’s earlier work. Instead, it focuses on the action and pessimism of the story’s events as told in four acts.
While Ritchie’s willingness to play with point of view and time is notable here, Wrath of Man is ultimately a disappointment. Some of that might have to do with Ritchie moving the setting of the action from London to Los Angeles, which, although he is no doubt familiar with the city, doesn’t feel as genuine a setting for his type of storytelling as what came before.
In a certain sense, Wrath of Man is a typical action crime thriller, the sort that was made before Guy Ritchie came around. And that, more than anything, is why this film is so disappointing. Guy Ritchie practically wrote the book on redefining the gangster picture, and ever since, he’s been doing what he can to escape that distinction, except for, notably, abandoning the genre altogether. It’s time he either embraces what makes him such a distinct filmmaker in the first place or sticks to his conviction and leaves the world of gangster pictures behind forever. After all, Guy Ritchie has already made at least three films that provide a definitive experience of the British crime picture.