This review originally appeared during the Toronto Film Festival. Guy Ritchie’s RockNRolla opens in New York and LA today.
Guy Ritchie has been getting a bad rap ever since the his impressive double header of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch turned into the double whammy of becoming Mr. Madonna in 2000 and directing Swept Away in 2002. Ritchie was quickly heading for the bargain bin after that romantic comedy became a universal joke, topped as a target of derision perhaps only by Gigli. He returned to gangster fare with Revolver in 2005, but even with star and Ritchie alumnus Jason Statham, the film wasn’t well-received. So here we are three years later with yet another gangster-studded film, RocknRolla, this time with posterboy Gerard Butler in a leading role.
Well, the good news is that this marks a return to the London underbelly that was laid down by Lock and Snatch: RocknRolla could rightfully be called the third film in a Ritchie trilogy. The bad news is that it’s a whole lot of flash and not much substance. Not that people go to Ritchie’s films expecting a dissertation on the human condition, but his movies do at least require you to follow along closely due to their labyrinthine plots. RocknRolla is no different, and although Butler seems to be the face of the film, he’s simply part of a large ensemble cast, and not the strongest player.
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Gerard Butler is serving as the posterboy for Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, but the truth is that he’s just one piece in the pie. He just happens to be the piece who has the added fruit filling of having starred in that little movie about Spartans. So, he’s now the de facto go to “face” for any film he’s going to co-star in.
He turns in a very solid performance as the down on his luck criminal One-Two in the movie, and unless he decides to play a role where he’s a homosexual struggling to break free from the bounds of oppression in Middle America, it’s as far as he can go to the other end of the spectrum from his turn as King Leonidas in 300. Check out the interview with him below and find out why he just can’t fake an orgasm.
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Guy Ritchie has been getting a bad rap ever since the his impressive double header of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch turned into the double whammy of becoming Mr. Madonna in 2000 and directing Swept Away in 2002. Ritchie was quickly heading for the bargain bin after that romantic comedy became a universal joke, topped as a target of derision perhaps only by Gigli. He returned to gangster fare with Revolver in 2005, but even with star and Ritchie alumnus Jason Statham, the film wasn’t well-received. So here we are three years later with yet another gangster-studded film, RocknRolla, this time with posterboy Gerard Butler in a leading role.
Well, the good news is that this marks a return to the London underbelly that was laid down by Lock and Snatch: RocknRolla could rightfully be called the third film in a Ritchie trilogy. The bad news is that it’s a whole lot of flash and not much substance. Not that people go to Ritchie’s films expecting a dissertation on the human condition, but his movies do at least require you to follow along closely due to their labyrinthine plots. RocknRolla is no different, and although Butler seems to be the face of the film, he’s simply part of a large ensemble cast, and not the strongest player.
…Read more
photo: Guy Ritchie, Ludacris, Jeremy Piven, Idris Elba, Gerard Butler
During Thursday’s press conference regarding RocknRolla, Guy Ritchie was asked to describe his upcoming Sherlock Holmes film, set to star Robert Downey Jr. Ritchie said, “It’s going to be very contemporary… Originally Sherlock Holmes was this intellectual action man. I think what happened was they played down the action man aspect [in previous films] because they just didn’t have the means of executing the action in an interesting way. Well, we do have the means and we have the technology.”
So it seems that Downey Jr.’s Sherlock is going to kick considerably more ass than previous incarnations, but still be smart. Ritchie used the term “intellectual action man” several times, and while it is communicative, it’s also really clumsy. Let’s hope the full title doesn’t end up being Sherlock Holmes: Intellectual Action Man.
Maybe Ritchie’s fascination with tough guys who still visit the library comes from somewhere personal… More after the jump.
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Whether or not Guy Ritchie is soon to become the most famous male divorcee on the planet, at least he’s keeping busy. The filmmaker will be here at the Con this weekend promoting RocknRolla, his long awaited follow-up to the kabbalah gangster debacle Revolver, and Virgin Comics is here touting Gamekeeper, a Ritchie-created comic book which will, at some point, become a Ritchie-directed film. Though Ritchie apparently approves drawings and storylines for each issue, a Virgin rep told me that the filmmaker was “way more involved” with the recently released Series 2, which introduces a band of mercenaries known as “The Soccer Club.” Panels and buying info can be found here. Above and below: shots from the Virgin display on the show floor, where Ritchie is being promoted alongside Dan Dare and another unlikely comic star, porn star Jenna Jameson.
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Mike Jones has two sets of additions to the Toronto International Film Festival lineup at The Circuit. The first, detailing nine Gala and Special Presentations, informs us of the existence of a documentary about A Chorus Line, as well as the news (I *think* it’s news–I haven’t been following TIFF updates closely enough to remember what’s just been rumor and what’s been officially confirmed) that the festival will world premiere the Larry Charles/Bill Maher doc Religulous, and host the North American premieres of Guy Ritchie’s RockNRolla and Waltz with Bashir. Meanwhile, the other release tells us to look forward to the continental premieres of Delta (the incest-tinged Adam and Eve story from Cannes) and Tokyo Sonata, as well as a number of world premieres from Scandinavia, and much more. Click forth for the details.
***Guy Ritchie last film, 2005’s universally panned Revolver, has yet to open in the U.S., but according to the Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Madonna is already planning his comeback. RocknRolla (um, sic) will star Thandie Newton, Ludacris, and Gerard Butler; Borys Kit’s plot description makes it sound like the Ocean’s 11 of cut-rate British capers. Joel Silver’s picking up the tab.
***In other news of limited dimension, Fred Seibert (producer of Powerpuff Girls and Fairly Oddparents), Eric Gardner (head of the company behind Ren and Stimpy) and the guy who manages Elvira and the Sex Pistols (!) are teaming up to launch Frederator Films, a new venture aimed at producing 2-D animated features for young males. According to Variety, Frederator already has three projects in progress, including The Seven Deadly Sins, which is described as “a hip-hop project with Don King hired as the first voice actor.”
***Congress saluted Jack Valenti yesterday, passing a resolution (!!!) to honor the late MPAA chair “for his military and political service as well as his advocacy for Hollywood and later for reducing poverty and disease around the world.”
