Rating of
2.5/4
"RocknRolla" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/23/12
A pair of small time thieves unknowingly rip off the powerful Russian underworld to appease a local mobster to whom they owe money. Rock N Rolla smells like Guy Ritchie desperately trying to give the public "what they want". It's very much a return to his roots and maybe should have been called "Lock, Stock and Smoking Snatch" (but I for one am quite glad it wasn't...) Instead of antique shotguns we have a painting. Instead of pigs we have crayfish. All of the characters are not only the familiar Ritchie stereotypes, they pretty much are the SAME Ritchie stereotype; every character is virtually identical played by a host of different actors. The plot is convoluted yet predictable and the edginess of dark humour is sorely missing; it just seemed like a sanitized copy of a Ritchie movie rather than one in itself. He seems to be going down the same road as M Night Shyamalan in that they both started very (maybe TOO) strongly, took a panning at the hands of the critics and box office and are now desperately trying to back pedal to where they were. Many may have found the undercurrent of new age BS in Revolver understandably irritating, but that film had a sense of inspiration and invention that is just absent from this effort. Not bad, but it's just 2 hours of cockney deja vu.
