Thank you for joining me today for the first in a series of lectures highlighting the often overlooked masterpieces of world cinema that deserve our attention. Today's entry is from the spectacularly uneven career of Guy "Guy" Ritchie. Is that his real name? IMDB would have you believe that it is, and who am I to challenge Amazon's DVD sales portal?
Guy Ritchie Filmography
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - 1998
Snatch - 2000
Swept Away - 2002
Revolver - 2005
Rocknrolla - 2008
Sherlock Holmes - 2009
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - 2011
After laying claim to his particular brand of cinema in 1998 with the ascendant Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie seemed destined for immeasurable success and many rubies. His major achievements in this era included paving the way for Jason Statham to eventually star in Crank 2 and making a movie so impressively British that Tom Cruise didn't realize it was in English and bought the rights to remake it in the "American English." Of course, he eventually realized that America doesn't have an equivalent for Cockney rhyming slang, except for maybe the controversial Ebonics. And although the ashes of Leroi Ron Hubbard prophesied that America would welcome Tommy in blackface with open arms, his robot brain malfunctioned, causing him to miss his opportunity.
Snatch was the unofficial remake of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with a bigger budget and brighter stars. It fell short of the original but it was fun. We began to wonder if the wunderkind was a one-trick pony. It may have been a pretty pony, with a nice bow in its mane and the finest cuts of oats. But it still shit...a lot. Sorry, that metaphor got away from me. If you take anything away from Snatch, let it be that it was a 7. Not bad, but a downward trend from Lock, Stock's exuberant 10. Consequently, I recently learned there was a spin-off television show in England called Lock, Stock... Why is this not something I have seen? It's availability should be a given.
Now our man entered the darkness of the Madonna years. Clearly a marriage forged in the fires of Mordor, it somehow came to pass that she should work together. The Material Girl no longer haunted the films of Warren Beatty. Does Swept Away deserve mention? Probably not. I didn't see it and I never will. But Revolver, I saw. I can't unsee it, no matter how hard I try. This is the low point of Guy Ritchie's career to date, in terms of credibility and box office. It has been a few years since I've seen it, but I believe the plot revolves around Ray Liotta putting on a Speedo. Jason Statham is in there somewhere. I think he slightly beat out Liotta's gut for top credit. Here is the rub though...it took place in the United States. Why? Does Guy Ritchie has some brilliant insight into the country? I submit he does not. He did not know the American version of the people he wrote and directed. His characters came from the streets where he grew up, whether they actually did or not is irrelevant. I believed they did and they were authentic. The U.S. already has American Guy Ritchie, but his parents named him Joe Carnahan. Not to open a whole 'nother can of worms, but how can I not follow this tangent? Carnahan made Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane (his Lock, Stock) in 1998 as well. It was rough but showed promise. Narc (the Carnahanian masterpiece) came out in 2002, also with Ray Liotta's same gut but fewer Speedos. I can't recommend it highly enough. Then he made the Smoking Aces, which attempted to out-Ritchie Ritchie. Ultimately, the film was found to cause cancer and banished from the Earth in my mind. Currently, Carnahan is serving time in one of the high numbered circles of hell for making an A-Team-like substance. It was there that he was forced to make a movie about Liam Neeson not fighting wolves with tiny liquor bottles. Forget him for now. I wish I could.
Rocknrolla
Now we come to the entire point of this gathering: Rocknrolla. In the grand scheme of things, it may not seem important. But we were languishing in a post-Snatch world where a unique film talent we had fallen in love with no longer existed. We needed something to believe in again. It was then that Rocknrolla rose from the ashes. It sounded like Guy Ritchie. It felt like Guy Ritchie. It smelled like Guy Ritchie. It tasted like Guy Ritchie. It (insert fifth sense here)ed like Guy Ritchie. We once again believed that Ritchie was a positive force in the world. He broke free from the shackles of Madonna and justified his existence. That is why Rocknrolla needed to exist. Cookie cutters shaped like USC and UCLA spit out miniature Spielbergs and, God help us, Lucases every day. We need voices like Ritchie that actually experienced life prior to finding their calling. Rocknrolla takes us into a world that exists somewhere across the pond. I need to believe that. Maybe that world only exists in Guy Ritchie's mind, but One Two, Handsome Bob and Mumbles roam free. It is an exercise in persistent style, and I am glad that it exists.
That shambled along much longer than I expected before getting to the point. Since then, Ritchie has managed to put together two Sherlock Iron Man movies in an age where Benedict Cumberbatch is the only truly relevant Holmes. To be truthful, the second one was quite entertaining. Rumors have him circling similarly soulless films for his next chapter. But Rocknrolla gives me faith that Ritchie will return to the wicked streets of London someday, where small-time thugs reach for the big brass ring while razor-sharp dialogue spits from their North and South. And I will be the first in line to buy my ticket and welcome him back.
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