The Automatik

With Danny Boyle’s last effort, The Beach, turning into a gorgeous disappointment (he should have definitely stuck with Ewan McGregor), Guy Ritchie is the UK’s heir to the throne of hip cinema.

Snatch is a cool movie. I don’t know if that makes it a really good movie, but it still works. The plot is not entirely unlike that of Ritchie’s debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: multiple story lines about various small time and big time criminals that eventually converge with unpleasant yet hilarious results.

This time around though, the personalities are more raw. Brick Top, for example, is one of the most unpleasant cinematic characters in recent memory, and in a grotesquely believable way. Ritchie excels at the uniquely English skill of bringing an element of fascination to the banal without rendering the characters idiots in the process.

Ritchie also has a remarkable way of drawing you in with a lot of flashy cinematography and frenetic narrative style, then actually managing to make the characters, no matter how pathetic, seem tragic and compelling. This is why Ritchie, while not yet a great filmmaker, certainly has the capacity to become one. I hope he continues to explore the humanity of the world without falling prey to the cooler-than-thou aesthetic. Two words for you, Mr. Ritchie: Quentin Tarantino.