RocknRolla
- Title: RocknRolla
- IMDB: link
The latest from writer/director Guy Ritchie is a bit of a convoluted tale of real-estate scams in London. Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) runs an under the table service of getting property rights quickly passed through red tape for an exorbitant fee. Anyone needing business done quickly has no other option than to go through Cole.
After bilking two tough guys (Gerard Bulter, Idris Elba) out of their dream, and getting them to owe him money, Cole moves onto business with a Russian (Karel Roden). Here’s where things get complicated.
In need of some fast cash One Two (Butler) and Mumbles (Elba) take a job from an associate (Thandie Newton) to rob a large supply of money coming into London. Unknown to the pair the money is the payoff the Russian is bringing to Cole, and its theft jeopardizes the business deal.
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Over the top acting, typical story line and a complete lack of moral high ground makes Pride and Glory absolutely painful to watch. You don’t give a shit about any one single character, not a one; the most enduring character is a wife dying of cancer. That’s right, a dying wife and interesting enough women were only window dressing in Pride and Glory. Chics don’t carry guns, they are not in the force and they certainly don’t have a brain, just drones that are completely clueless to the peril and damage their husbands are pressing on the poor elements of society. Pride and Glory is way too long and exaggerates every stereotype from unlawful cops to the criminal element, way too much in one film. It’s certainly nothing we haven’t seen before, not a single original thought or character.
Sometimes I think the best job in the world would be as a writer for video games. The plots don’t have to make sense, you don’t have to worry about logic or character development and the story is always a distant third to gameplay and effects. If this is true then the hardest job around just might be the guy who has to take the nonsensical storyline of a video game and attempt to turn it into a feature film. The result, more often than not, is something like Max Payne
