Snatch (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

"Snatch" is a good movie, which I can prove with unassailable logic through the following syllogism:

• "Lock, Stock ..." was a good movie.
• "Snatch" is the same movie.
• Therefore, it must also be good.

This film really should be called "Lock, Stock and Two More Smoking Barrels", for handy identification

The first ten minutes are great, every bit as hip and funny as you'd want to feed your Tarantino-addicted brain. Four guys hold up an Antwerp diamond exchange while disguised as Hasidic Jews. Hilarious dialogue, over-the-top premise. After that, each of the main characters is introduced with a posterized freeze-frame complete with name and graphics, in the manner of a boxing poster. Outstanding sequences that led me to think I could sit back and enjoy a work of brilliance.

Well, I did, kind of, except that I'd already seen it before, or at least something very similar.

It is interesting to me that Ritchie and Tarantino, the kings of the pulp genre, have a very special world that they inhabit and reproduce for us. They never draw any references from the real world. They never draw any references from books. It's as if the entire past of the human race includes only what has been on the screen - that forms all of our history, all of our present, all of our basis of reference. And when they do need an outside source, they never turn to literature or reality, but only to comics and pulp stories. It's a fascinating and self-referential world those boys live in. It seems like the world that I used to inhabit when I was a boy. Before I ever met any real wiseguys, my whole concept was based on movies and TV. Before I ever got laid and talked at length to women, I had this distorted concept of what women were like, as if they were just props in a special boy-world, to be called in from offstage when needed, only to be dismissed when there was anything fun or important to do, or some good dirty jokes to tell, or a good game on TV. When I grew up that view of the world went away, and I can just barely remember what it was like. Until guys like Guy Ritchie and Tarantino come along to remind me.

You'd think Ritchie would change some now that he's married, but remember his wife is Madonna, and that unusual fact may allow him to stay in his make-believe world forever. I don't know, but I suspect that living a sheltered and privileged life with Madonna is not going to make his work any more reality-based.

All kidding aside, I caution Americans that the dialects make this almost a foreign-language film, but since it is in English, it comes with no subtitles. the accents make the already labyrinthine plot almost completely indecipherable. Take no comfort in the presence of Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro. They are the least comprehensible of all. Pitt plays a guy that even the other guys in the movie can't understand. The intersection of the multiple plots is deliberately complicated, so the movie is hard enough to follow, but they also made a couple of continuity errors in following the trail of the diamond. Between the complexity, the errors, and the accents, the whole thing is virtually incomprehensible. Of course, this isn't meant to be one of those "Topkapi" caper films. The plot isn't the point of this kind of movie, but a mere backdrop, so you can enjoy the atmosphere and humor without completely following the action, and when you lose it, you'll find your way back in.

If you saw "Lock, Stock", and would like to see more of the same, here you are.

If you saw "Lock, Stock" and hated it, or if you don't enjoy a jolly Tarantine, I suggest you head down to Blockbuster and get a different film. Hint: nobody ever checks out "Agnes of God".