Ready to Roll
RocknRolla Directed by Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie didnt make the mistake of putting his wife Madonna in RocknRolla; but his latest gangster film queers a sense of Macho to match Madonnas sense of Slut. Hopefully, Ritchies fantasy wont roll back human progress; but this time its shaped an unexpectedly enjoyable movie.
RocknRolla joins badass folderol to bad-boy (adolescent) distress. Ritchies love of swagger is embodied by flamboyant cartoons that all harbor a personal social resentmentusually from way back in childhood or class disadvantage. The key figure is Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), a dissolute rock star addicted to music, drugs and violence. Quids a perversely glamorized Punk idol working out abandonment issues; he calls himself a rocknrolla, the way American rappers call themselves gangstas.
Ritchies private fantasies resemble an American yahoos: car-crashes, shootouts, racial bravado and easy sex. But this time Ritchies Tarantino knock-off shows real style. His personal argotincluding delirious, self-referential plot contortionshave splendid (practiced) ease. Hes got a first-rate cast and knows how to showcase his actors: Hot-shot Kebbells rocknrolla matches the star-power of Idris Elba (Mumbles), Gerard Butler (One Two), the stunning Thandie Newton (Stella), Tom Hardy (Handsome Bob), Mark Strong (Archie) and Tom Wilkinson (Lenny). They each cut such sharp, personable, enormously sexy figures that these multiculti, caste-conscious street thugs could be the cinema-inspired self-projections of a Mike Leigh cast.
By mixing class desperation with a sense of the absurd, Ritchie clarifies the materialistic lies of crime movies: In one scene, a gangster tries buying off rich students with blood money. In another, Newton and Butler workout their frustrations in a sex montagegraphic postures and mutual gratification as telling as the baby whores flirtation in Catch Me If You Can. A relentless, staccato foot chase with Soviet goons (What are these guys made of?) dramatizes British immigrant issues better than Eastern Promises. And One-Twos fascination with Handsome Bobs gay attentions upends the entire history of thuggish machismo. RocknRollas a shockera Guy Ritchie film full of wit and feeling.