Snatch (2001, DVD)

I don't usually watch violent movies. Especially if there's things like dismemberment, burning, torture, and high caliber weaponry. And I usually don't laugh.

However...

This time, I was roaring, and wiping my eyes because I was laughing so hard. Guy Ritchie (otherwise known as Mr. Madonna) wrote and directed this surrealistic tale of a diamond, a dog and a drag-out fight, told in series of flashbacks, multiple angles and points of view. The cast is huge, with a couple of big names to add luster, and most of the cast being british unknowns or character actors.

There's also plenty of tongue in cheek humor here, and it rates up there with Prizzi's Honor as one of the blackest comedies that I've ever seen. It's a parody of itself, taking the slow motion style of The Matrix, 60's caper films such as The Rock, modern oddities like Fight Club and The Usual Suspects and jumbles all of it up together into a violent, but elegant, tale of gangs, illegal fights and a flawless, perfect diamond and its travels through the underbelly of London.

That's where it all begins, with Frankie Four Fingers (Benecio Del Toro) raiding a diamond workshop in Antwerp and making off with a 84 carat diamond that is the size of a baby's fist, and enough to make anyone turn criminal for. Seeking to convert his loot into cash, he goes to jewel broker, The Head (Tim Reid), who naturally gets ahold of Uncle Avi (Dennis Farina) in New York.

In the meantime, there's another batch of theives who are intersted in Franky and his diamond: two pawnbrokers, and the driver, Tyrone (Ade); illegal fight arranger, Bricktop (Alan Ford), and Boris 'The Blade' (Rade Serbedzija) who can really dodge bullets. Even the ones fired by Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones). And that's how we get lead to the narrator of the story, Turkish (Jason Statham) and his partner, Tommy (Stephen Graham), who are trying desperately to survive and not be fed to the pigs. Along with an Irish Gypsy by the name of Mickey (Brad Pitt), whose dialect is incomprehensible to everyone but himself and the lads.

And then there's the dog.

I said it was a complicated movie. This is one that you just can't sit and watch, waiting for the next crash or shooting. You have to actually watch and pay attention to who is doing what to who, because later on, what seems to be a throwaway scene is actually vital to later on in the story. This movie hardly ever slows down, and we go careening through London, watching as one mishap after another happens, with plenty of violence.

That's what gives this movie the hard, very hard, R rating. Every other word out of people's mouths is a variation of that four-letter word so beloved of screenwriters these days, and Brad Pitt should have had subtitles included. But that just adds to the twisted charm of this film. There's plenty of violence in this: at least twenty four dead bodies, six sets of breasts, one burning alive, three fistfights, one suicide, enough hot lead flying around to supply plumbing to Grand Central, and, er the pigs. Human eating pigs, if Bricktop can be believed. Watch for a cameo by Guy Ritchie as The Man Reading The Newspaper, and a great soundtrack, including the obligatory Madonna song.

All in all, five stars for it, but the vileness of the characters can be a little rough to take. I won't reveal the ending, because it's too good to spoil. Most adults will find this one distasteful, but if you want to see some great one liners, and mayhem out of control, rent this one some night.