Snatch

Wildly inventive and lightning fast, “Snatch” is 2001’s answer to 1994’s “Pulp Fiction.” Guy Ritchie’s new picture (he also wrote and directed “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” in 1998) is an ensemble piece, with about a dozen major characters and several story lines that intersect and bounce off of one another. The quest for a perfect 68-karat diamond sets the action running, but the movie just uses this as a link between its tales of illegal bare-knuckle boxing, brutal gangsters, incompetent robbers, mumbling gypsies, and a lively dog. The comparison to “Pulp Fiction” is apt, because both share a disregard for linear narrative structure, and both manage to make their different threads twine together in a way that is dynamic yet coherent. Ritchie keeps us just this side of confusion as we get to know the characters and how they connect with each other. Unlike the Tarantino imitators, Ritchie manages to update the technique and make it his own, taking storytelling to a conclusion perfect for this visually hyperactive age. He does so with a number of camera and editing techniques which maintain visual interest while reducing expository narrative to a few seconds of images. The large cast is terrific, as are the colorful character names Ritchie has concocted for them.

The actors have been so perfectly cast that it seems they can do no wrong. The central characters are Turkish (Stratham) (who also does the voiceover narration, and I will withhold my usual objection to his technique) and Tommy (Graham), two low end criminals who run afoul of dread crime boss Bricktop (Ford), as well as arms dealer and thief Boris the Blade (Serbedzija) as they try to put together a fixed boxing match with Mickey (Pitt), one of a band of roving gypsies living on the outskirts of London. (Pitt is very good, by the way, forgoing his “sexiest man alive” superstar status to blend into the ensemble like anyone else, and he seems to relish the role.) Meanwhile, any number of rogues are after the aforementioned diamond. It would be pointless to try to summarize all the plotting; besides, part of the fun is seeing how these disparate elements come together. Also like “Pulp Fiction,” “Snatch” favors unexpectedly learned and refined language from the unlikeliest of persons. I should mention that you need to keep your ears sharp, because some of the English is a bit hard to understand due to the accents (and I am not even talking about the hilarious patois that the gypsies use, and which, in a recurring gag, nobody can understand).

Also be aware that the picture, while very funny, favors a decidedly dark humor, and is extremely casual about brutality and violence. There is very little explicit gore on screen, but there is little doubt about what sort of mayhem the characters are perpetrating upon one another. Ritchie derives a lot of the film’s energy from the camera tricks (John Murphy’s lively and eclectic score also helps), but they are effective, adding to the atmosphere without becoming the center of attention. While it is true that a picture that relies too much on technique can become dated awfully fast, I think Ritchie has packed “Snatch” with enough spirit, humor, sharp writing, and vivid characters to keep it the same crackling good entertainment in the future that it is today. (1/24/2001)