Lock, stock and two smoking barrels (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #68

How can the first film of a director, made on a tiny budget, be as brilliant as this? When it was released in 1998 audiences went crazy on both sides of the Atlantic, though maybe for different reasons. Americans are turned on by the quaintness of British culture and British accents. British fans just enjoyed the hard hitting action, interspersed with occasional comedy.

The two smoking barrels, held by Vinnie Jones above, give the film its name, but they're almost coincidental. The film is about four friends in London who get into big debt with a local gangster, Hatchet Harry. They overhear their neighbours planning to rob a drug den, so they make their own plan to rob their neighbours when they return from the crime. Both robberies succeed. The four friends head home with over a million pounds in cash and bags full of high grade cannabis.

They should have left the cannabis where it was or smoked it themselves. Instead, they get greedy and ask a fence called Nick the Greek to sell it for them. He offers it to Rory Breaker, the man who owned the drug den that was robbed. He recognises it as his own merchandise, so he takes his gang to kill the thieves. He's not fully informed, so he attacks the thieves who stole from him, not the thieves who stole from the thieves who stole from him.

There are multiple plot twists in the film, not just at the end, but interwoven through the story. The guns appear repeatedly. Hatchet Harry is a collector who wants the guns for himself. After a botched robbery they find themselves in the hands of the Nick the Greek, who sells them to the four friends. The guns pass from hand to hand as the film continues.

The film is made in sepia tones and the picture frequently looks grainy. The picture quality has been criticised by some reviewers, but it's deliberate, and it gives the film a unique appearance.

Success Rate:  + 18.8

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