by Kris Katz
Brief spoiler-free entertainment reviews

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

RocknRolla (2008)

For director Guy Ritchie, returning to the genre that helped him make his mark must be a bittersweet homecoming. The over-stylish British ganster genre really hasn't existed without him, and having him back ought to be enough to recharge the batteries in a single shot. But alas, no. The inventive grittiness present in both Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch, is gone, replaced with the relative gloss of real estate extortion gone wrong. The style of filmmaking itself is still present, thankfully, with the ever-fun smash cuts and whip pan cutaways. It's never dull to look at. Though little of that matters when the script tries and fails to be funny as often as this one does. Winding and wacky as much of the film manages to seem, a lot of it still feels like a hollow shell, or a vain attempt to reproduce something that the director has simply grown out of.

4 out of 10.

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