Snatch

I'm going to steal a phrase from one of Mrs. Filthy's friends to describe Snatch, and I hope she's not as mad as the time I stole her hot rollers because I was experimenting with my bangs. The phrase is "And Then" because Snatch is an And Then movie. "And then this happened, and then that happened and then this other thing happened, and then I stopped paying attention, and then I had to take a piss, and then it still kept going."

It's a bad movie, laboring with more fake hipness than an accountant in aviator sunglasses at a TGI Friday's happy hour. Even worse, there is no snatch, as in poon, barn door, pussy, slippy-lips, et al, in the whole fucking flick. Just some nonsense about a giant diamond.

I won't describe the plot in too much detail, first because it ain't worth bothering, and second, because if you've seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you already know it. There are several London Underground subplots that miraculously collide at the end. A gambling addict poorly played by Benicio Del Toro transports an 84-carat diamond and then gets sidetracked to an illegal boxing match. And then that match has been set up by a deadly four-eyed thug, Brick Top played very well by Alan Ford, who wants to rig the fight and feeds his enemies to pigs. And then one of the boxers is Gorgeous George provided by two baby-faced wannabe hoods. And then George gets the shit beat out of him by gypsy Brad Pitt. And then the boys swap Pitt for George in the fight, but Pitt won't take the planned dive and that makes Ford very angry.

And then, all sorts of people are after the 84-carat diamond, including Rade Serbedzija, some crooked pawnbrokers and a couple of sleazy diamond brokers. And then they all run around, catch their breath, then run around some more. And then you think the movie is over and you're glad, and then the movie keeps going. And then, you think it's over, and then it keeps going some more until it's out of piss and steam, but you're just starting to build some of your own.

Writer/Director/person-stupid-enough-to-marry-Madonna Guy Ritchie is the most imaginative man working in the tiny little corner he's painted himself into. I liked his first flick, but not enough to see it twice, and especially not enough to pay to see it chewed up, digested and shit out as a less-entertaining imitation. I mean, this movie is a really crappy knockoff of his first movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The similarities are not only mind-numbing, they're ass- and balls-numbing too. I guess Ritchie figures that if he rips off his own movie people will forget that Lock, Stock was just a good Tarantino rip-off in the first place.

Both movies are about young hoods in over their heads in the London Underground. Both are incessantly narrated. Both are stories where you follow the bouncing valuable object. Both have a very nasty paternal figure who will kill the young hoods if they don't deliver the goods. Both use Vinnie Jones as a bounty hunter (but a different bounty hunter). Neither has any women of substance (sorry the hot twins here don't count -- if they'd taken off their tops, well...). Both end with the main characters not quite getting what they want. And on and on. Near as I can tell, the only real advantage Snatch has over the first movie is that greasy new-age fucker Sting isn't in it.

This movie is being sold as "hip" and "cool" and it'll probably fill that bill for teenage boys who aren't interesting enough to hip or cool themselves. Hell, assholes of all ages with no personality may think they're cool for having watched this. But, it's all so labored, and the slick dialog is so tired and takes so long to explain that no sixteen-year-old is going to be able remember enough of it to repeat to his friends. Really, I've never seen such a boring movie paced so quickly.

The main problem with Snatch is that every action is driven by unfathomable stupidity. I don't mean that the characters are dumb because that would be fine. It would be like having a picnic with Mrs. Filthy's co-workers, what with all the blood and running around screaming. But, Snatch is supposedly filled with shrewd guys, always knowing the right thing to say. Yet Ritchie never has them do a Goddamn logical thing because if they did, his hipster house of cards would collapse. So, we're subjected to a story that spins and twists arbitrarily.

The twists aren't surprising because to be surprised you have to expect one thing and get another. Watching Snatch, I gave up expecting anything. All the characters do is stumble around as pawns to Ritchie's need to stuff mouths with B-rate "wiseguy" dialog and thrust them into absurd situations. For example, Ford's Brick Top is a man who, like bartender Tina at the Arvada Tavern, would rather kill you than hear you apologize. Ritchie labors letting us know this, giving him a stupid and boring monologue about flesh-eating pigs and having the narrator tell us how awful he is. Then, Brick Top lets a half-dozen dopes in this story live for no other reason than so that Ritchie can get them in more trouble later.

And why should we give a fuck? Ritchie never gives us a reason to give a pony's left nut whether any of these jackasses lives or dies. They're all unlikable pukes and he makes life so fucking cheap with his "hilarious" scenes of people getting run over. Nobody has a glint of humanity or redeeming quality. The screen is so stuffed with unnecessary "colorful" characters that nobody amounts to more than the nicknames Ritchie loves to give them, like Frankie Four Fingers, boris the Blade and Bulleth-tooth.

In Lock, Stock the four main characters are likable because they've been unwillingly thrust into this dark world. They're essentially decent people in a tough spot. In Snatch, Ritchie is more than happy to let everyone wallow in his mud. And while that makes a good time at the strip club, it's a little tedious when it's all men up there and the mud is figurative, not literal.

The performances range from very good to awful. Ford is menacing, Serbedzija is funny as the Russian who can't be killed, and Brad Pitt is surprisingly good. His incoherent Irish Brogue schtick gets old very fast, though. The best acting belongs to the dog who swallows a squeaky toy. He gets the only laughs, too.

Benicio Del Toro is a muttering Hasidic Jew and he's awful, apparently trying to cover his face from the media throughout the movie. Denis Farina is lost as Cousin Avi. He reads his lines like he's trying on a suit that's ugly and doesn't fit. He keeps shrugging his shoulders and looking around like "Is this right?"

Two Fingers for Snatch, and I wish the movie had given me the implied place to stick them. I imagine, though, that my measly two fingers won't be enough for ritchie's new wife. She