Who is the Audience for This Movie?

Fans of crime dramas.

What I Liked About This Movie

When Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) directs a movie even when it fails (Revolver) you can be guaranteed that it is going to look awesome. In RocknRolla Ritchie uses gritty flair to both glamorize and show the ugly side of crime. It is a technique that style wise works perfectly. As far as the story goes the intertwining of all the characters actions quite tightly leads to some very interesting situations. When the action does hit it moves at break neck speeds and happens to be the best part of the movie.

What Didn’t Work For Me

I really wanted to dig RocknRolla from the outset but as the movie rolls on it gets dragged down by a few major issues. The first issue that is apparent is the odd use of voice over at infrequent moments. It seems wildly out of place every time it’s used and seemed like it was used out of convenience not necessity.

Having so many characters involved in the plot was the second issue that really did not gel with me. Using so many different people requires strategic juggling by any movie maker and Ritchie does not handle them all very well. I just do not enjoy being bombarded by loads of one dimensional stock gangster movie archetypes. If the number of key characters were dropped a bit the movie would have been much tighter.

Finally, the other two issues I had with this movie were the large boring gaps between the good parts that mostly involved tough guys just talking with each other and the cheated feeling I got when it is revealed that everything in the first movie is just a setup for a sequel.

Should You Watch This Movie?

If you really like your crime movies you may enjoy it but it is too wildly inconsistent for me to recommend.

My Rating (Out of 13)