Snatch

How’s about a coupla previews? THE MEXICAN–You know, I can’t help but want to see this movie even though the though of Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, two of the most sickeningly beautiful people in the world, together is a bit creepy. But it looks like they’re playing up their white trash heritage, so maybe they won’t be so perfect.

Looks funny in a weird sort of way. Probably won’t be any good, but it’ll be fun. And with Brad in tow it’ll at least have some good acting.

3000 MILES TO GRACELAND–Great cast of Elvises (Elvisi? Elvi?) in this one: Kurt Russell (who played Elvis in John Carpenter’s TV movie based on the man’s life called, appropriately enough, Elvis), Christian Slater (who was an Elvis maniac in True Romance…even had the man come to him in the form of Val Kilmer) and Kevin Costner (who, granted, doesn’t have any real Elvis connection, but he’s in a renaissance lately, like Elvis in the late 60s). And it’s got a plot lifted almost directly from Ocean’s 11. A group of guys decide to rob Vegas during an Elvis Convention.

Like The Mexican, it’ll be big, dumb fun, but it’ll probably suck overall.

I’m there.

SAVING SILVERMAN–Are there no movies coming out in the next couple of months that are going to be genuinely good? This one I have to see because of Steve Zahn and Jack Black. I also like Jason Biggs (isn’t he a little young to have grown up with the other two guys) and Amanda Peet is HOT! This one will be so bad, but I’ll see it and probably love it. GO JACK AND STEVE!!

By the way, you can totally tell that Steve’s underwear are digitally put on him in the scene where he’s doing yoga or something. (Yes, I read it in Entertainment Weekly, so I was looking for it…but it’s pretty obvious.)

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS–And finally we get to one that I just don’t care about at all. This one looks like one big bowl of suck. The only slightly interesting things about it are Vin Diesel (I just can’t not like the guy after Iron Giant) and Jordana Brewster (the little hottie from The Faculty). Other than that it looks like a cross between Le Mans, Rebel Without A Clue, and Gone In 60 Seconds…and I mean the re-make, not the original. Bad, bad, bad.

Now. What about dat movin’ picture?

After seeing Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels I knew that I had to pay attention to Guy Ritchie. Now, two years later, he’s finally come up with something besides a relationship with Madonna. And it doesn’t look like the ol’ girl has slowed this guy down one bit.

This time out Guy tells us the story of a bunch of inept British crooks and gangsters who are after a very large diamond.

Turkish (Jason Statham from Lock Stock) and Tommy (Stephen Graham) are two lackeys who are trying to be up and comers. Unfortunately they keep turning on some bad luck. They get involved with Brick Top (Alan Ford), a gangster who feeds his enemies to his pigs. This guy runs an illegal boxing match every week and wants Turkish and Tommy to take care of his contender who is supposed to drop in the 4th round.

Unfortunately, they lose him. But they have a great prospect in Mickey (Brad Pitt). He’s a one punch hitter from a band of gypsies from outside of London. Will he throw a fight, though? And will anyone be able to understand him?

Somewhere along the way we also meet Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) who is in charge of the diamond. His boss, Doug The Head (Mike Reid) is a local jeweler/gangster. His cousin, Avi (Dennis Farina, great as always), comes to London from New York to get his stupid cousin out of trouble.

Meanwhile, Vinny (Robbie Gee), Sol (Lennie James) and Tyrone (Ade…no, just Ade) try to get the diamond for Boris The Bullet-Dodger (Rade Serbedzija from Mission: Impossible II, Stigmata and Eyes Wide Shut), the local Russian arms dealer.

And somewhere in this mix comes Bullet Tooth Tony (the real discovery from Lock Stock, Vinnie Jones), a kind of cleaner for local gangsters.

That’s an awful lot of characters to take care of…and somehow Guy does it. He introduces us to each of them, gets us to care about them as it were, and then pulls the rug out from under us when he kills them off one by one. What can I say? It’s a gift that few have.

This guy’s style is amazing. It’s almost comic book style, but there’s a little more to it. Imagine a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, even more so than From Dusk Til Dawn. It’s fast, cartoony (in this one he even introduces each character with a comic book picture) and violent and yet keeps its sense of humor throughout. The movie was hilarious.

The performances were great, with Farina and Pitt being standouts. Farina was the epitome of the crazed American gangster who just didn’t quite seem to have a handle on the situation or his temper…but he always thought that he did. And Brad was great as the nearly incoherent Piker who could knock a guy out in one punch. This guy was almost as much of a bad ass as Tyler Durden.

The only real problem that I had with it was the intrusion of Madonna. No, she doesn’t appear in the film, but her song, “Lucky Star” does…twice…within about five minutes. It would have been kind of funny (but not really) if it had only shown up once. But by the second time I was already tired of it.

Some have said that this isn’t nearly as good as Lock Stock. I’m not really sure. I need to watch that one again before I can say. Personally, I love ‘em both. Great flicks that probably need to be watched more than once to really get everything out of them.

And, yes, the kid behind the ticket window snickered when my friend and I said we wanted tickets to Snatch. Don’t we all, guys? Don’t we all?

Personally, I think the uproar about the name was all for nothing, though. Who cares? I’m glad they didn’t change the name just to appease some asshole who thought it was offensive. That’s just because he had a dirty mind. Everyone knows what the title of the film is really referring to, so it really doesn’t make a difference.

Watch for a cameo by Spud (Ewen Bremner) from Trainspotting. I think I’ll name my first film Pussy and make it about a cat. The next one will be about the trials and tribulations of a family that’s moving. It will be called Box. After that, I think I’ll make one called Vagina. It’ll be about a kid from Virginia who can’t spell.