revolver

Consensus on the stank levels of Guy Ritchie's last project were very unanimous-Swept Away stanked hard, whereas his first two features seem to run along the love-it or hate-it line of things. As a pretty major fan of both Lock Stock and Snatch, I was hopeful that this would be a solid return to the over-styled gangster territory that made Guy Guy.

After a very loud entrance outside Roy Thomson thanks in part to the iconic wife on his arm (from 6 feet away, yes she is rather iconish I can attest), Guy tentatively introduced the movie and asked everyone to 'digest' it over time. And so digest I do, as this is frankly is toughest work yet, with nods to all sorts of surrealist styles and a new foray into psychological breakdown (cue jump cuts and distorted voiceovers...), and what you get is bloated, and rather messy.

The key missing element (at least in this cut, which can't be the final) is the concise pacing that made his first two films so watchable. With them you knew all you were getting were testosterone-heavy caper flicks, but they had humour and endearing characters under a carefully tailored production. The film simply lingers way too long in several uncomfortable scenes, perhaps as a gesture to be more serious and gritty, but it just comes off as awkward. Statham is his usual bristly self, but the rest of the cast (including an ice cold Andre 3000) comes off as not-believable actors reciting prewrapped dry cool wit.

It will be interesting to see what happens between now and the release-I have faith a salvageable film is in there somewhere-but last night's tepid applause afterwards was not a good sign for a world premiere.