Snatch (2000) – 3/5

Has a film ever tried harder to be cool?

The following two paragraphs are my review from September 2016:

„Snatch“ is a British English-language film from 2000, so it is already over 15 years old. The writer and director is Guy Ritchie and this film came out shortly before he married Madonna. The cast includes many known names, such as Oscar winners Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro, action film superstar Jason Statham, the late Dennis Farina and former football player Vinnie Jones. This 105-minute movie is as fast as it gets for a film and this is certainly not to everybody’s liking (including myself). I found the camera work (i.e. The constant switches and movements) fairly distracting. The characters are all very much in your face, so Ritchie and the actors definitely wanted to make sure you remember them. But how about writing them properly instead? Giving them interesting background stories and making them memorable this (much more subtle) way? Now that would be something, wouldn’t it? And that also certainly requires much more skill when it comes to writing screenplays compared to just letting everybody shout at each other for the entire film, even if the path Ritchie took at least resulted in a handful fairly memorable quotes.

In the heart of the story there is a precious (priceless, actually) diamond most of the characters are after. And instead of characters, I could also say criminals as absolutely everybody in here has gotten their hands dirty one way or another. This includes all kinds of robberies, brawls, illegal fighting, blackmailing and even murder. The latter also includes the scene I found the funniest. (Actually, I did not find too many scenes in here funny I have to admit, it mostly seemed pretty try-hard to me.) I am talking about a scene where one guy shoots another and the guy hit by the bullet keeps insulting the guy who shot at him. And this goes on and on. Another bullet, another insult, another shot, another insult etc. He just didn’t want to die it seems and told him frankly and openly what he thought of him. This scene was laugh-out-loud hilarious. But it was really the only one and there aren’t too many entertaining sequences in here. Still, comedy was probably the film’s biggest strength as storytelling and character development were really weak in my opinion. Ritchie had a fairly decent cast here and I found it pretty underwhelming what he made of it. This film is actually inside the IMDb top250 films and this is truly baffling as this film does not have any substance (besides drugs) or depth whatsoever. I guess this film has many fanboys rooting for it (I believe it actually is a very male-oriented film with the cast and story) and these do not care about all the important aspects I already mentioned that this film lacks. I personally give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

I got to watch this movie again two days ago on the big screen, now in the spring of 2023, or actually still winter of we are precise, as this was shown on the occasion of a British film retrospective and I am kinda glad I went and took the chance this time as I liked it more than I did back then. A lot more in fact. I would not say it is a great film or that it deserves to be counted among the 250 best films of all time, but it is worth seeing. Some of the criticism from back then still stand I suppose. The overall story/screenplay did feel shoddy and I cannot say otherwise, but the film lives through individual segments and scenes I suppose and I laughed quite a bit watching those. The scene with the Russian guy it was I think taking all these bullets and simply not dying was again hilarious. I also liked the Farina moments as I am just quite a fan of the actor mostly thanks to his L&O past. At least this was where I first came across him I think. Here he is on the other side of the law. How he flies over to deal with things was fun and how he really has enough later on and flies back was funny too. He also kinda gets the last shot of the film there. Anyway, in a film this violent, it is maybe surprising that the dog makes it out alive. Or maybe it is not as this is not a drama movie, but all about the action and comedy. The dog swallowing the diamond then AFTER they thought it had it inside him was funny too. Or also the dog swallowing another item earlier that made funny sounds was one of the best comedic moments from the film. I will just list a few more moments that made me smile or even laugh: I find pigs awesome, but the idea of how they can be so violent and cruel when they hungry and easily make corpses disappear was pretty dark humor. I liked it.

But it was not just those key elements of the story that entertained me. Some of the very brief moments did too, like Pitt’s character’s mother’s face expression on a photo. Pitt’s character, however, reminded me a bit too much of his role in „Fight Club“. He was really channeling that character and I am not sure he would have been cast here if he had not starred in the Fincher film before that. But oh well. Benicio del Toro is always nice to see, but he really should have gotten more screen time here. I am not even sure what happened to his character. He is featured so heavily in the opening and then he is just gone later on. This movie we have here by the way from the same year in which he starred in the film that won him an Oscar. I would have liked more form him. It is still interesting to see how maybe Statham was the closest to a lead here. The film poster would not make you think this way and I also kinda thought we would see more Brad Pitt in this one, but it is really all about the action and ensemble performance you can say. Nobody was supposed to really stand out and I guess with his character’s fighting background, Pitt’s character was still the one people may remember most from the outcome here. Also because of the twist at the end where he not only took out all the bad guys with his people, but even got kinda rich. Surely his character will be remembered more than the three (or more) Black actors in here for example. They were all supposed to be seen as amateurs, but they were still in some of the best scenes of the film, even if their impact was not huge. Well, physically the impact in the car accident scene was kinda huge when everybody crashes into one another and we see it from the perspectives of the thugs included in there. What happens when milk is poured out of the car window etc. This was also funny when the guy with the bag there on his head almost dances around.

But what was way funnier and probably also cooler and maybe the best scene of the film was the elaboration on male genitalia and how one character drew a parallel there between the latter and these three Black folks. I am not sure if a film like this could get made today. I suppose at least one of the good guys or toughest guys would have to be a Black character. Kinda sad state of affairs in terms of development that political correctness now plays such a big role. But we can be thankful then that films like this got made when artistic impact and creativity played the key role still. And if we are honest, thank God things are not as bad in America as they are here in Germany. I guess in my country, the latter, we would not even get characters, not even criminals, anymore to be allowed use the words „gypsy“ or other derogatory terms for this ethnic group of people. The talk about Jews would have gotten censored too most likely. Oh yeah, another somewhat funny moment was when we had one character express verbally that he will take care of another character because he does not like Russians. I could go on and on for sure and mention many other scenes and inclusions I liked here, but you get the message. So my statement in the shorter original review that there was just one really funny scene is not valid anymore and I refrain from that. Oh, as for the cast, I must also mention Alan Ford. He surely deserves it. Maybe my favorite performance from the film even, but everybody kinda brought their humor here in a good and entertaining way.

I see now in 2023 not too much has changed. Guy Ritchie’s newest film does have similarities to this one here in terms of story and genres included and for example Jason Statham is on board again as well. He was pretty young here, but the hair situation was almost the same as it is now almost a quarter of a century later. So yeah, as you have probably understood by now, I change my original recommendation from negative to positive and for me now this is probably even one of the best comedies from 2000. It is a good choice if you are in for something fun without too much depth. The diamond does look amazing too. The music here is also alright. I think my favorite was the song we hear very briefly when the big guy, the one who likes watching cars, falls down after Pitt’s character smacks him. Cool tune and I had to check for the name afterwards to put it on my MP3 player. I was still a bit surprised that Pitt’s character took all these punches and went down a couple times before really unleashing on the bad guy in this scene. It was also a bit of a running gag how he simply would not lose a fight on purpose and keeps knocking his opponents out. The first fight in the ring was there maybe even funnier than the second (and final) fight where he took a bit of a beating himself. I was still a bit surprised that Statham’s and Graham’s characters did get a second chance from Brick Top there. This character was the coolest anyway, also for example in the scene when he meets the Black guys and tells the pig story I mentioned earlier and also how he asked if he needs to introduce himself. The reactions from the guys was fine too, like how one knew exactly who he was and the other had no clue who he was and what was going on there in general. This is really all then, go check this film out. Probably gonna have a fun time.