Snatch – 2000 | 104 mins | Thriller, Crime | Colour

Plot Synopsis

In August 1998 an independent movie with a ludicrously long title and whose biggest star was a professional footballer took an unexpected £11 million at the box-office – and became the movie event of the year. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels was first and by far the best of the new wave of British gangster movies; the key to Guy Ritchie’s first movie making such a killing at the box office was its cockiness.

With only his second film, Ritchie is in a tricky position. Can he match the success of Lock, Stock? The resulting film is better made, better acted and more tightly plotted than his helter-skelter debut, but also more conservative, Snatch comes straight from the if-it-isn’t-broke-then-don t-fix-it academy. It s another multi-layered heist movie, this time based in the shady underworld of London’s jewellery quarter.

It starts with the theft of an enormous diamond in Antwerp, then moves to London, where stick-up guy Frankie Four-Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) stops off to do a little business before delivering his booty to boss Avi (Dennis Farina) back in New York. Frankie, however, is a compulsive gambler, which shady arms dealer Boris The Blade (Rade Serbedzija) knows all too well, and after taking him to an illegal prize-fight, Boris sets Frankie up to be robbed by his inept stooges. And from here, of course, it all goes haywire, as double-cross follows double-cross and the bodies pile up. Brad Pitt steals the show as mumbling Mickey, but Jones puts in a good show to as the meticulous Bullet-Tooth Tony.