Two unscrupulous businessmen, One-Two and Mumbles, go into business with a mobster, Lenny Cole, and he rips them off. In order to pay him bak they must steal from a Russian gangster, who just so happens to be working with Lenny Cole.
Blaine: Guy Ritchie likes to make the type of movies that he’ll want to go see. He thinks like the audience. Usually I’m a guy who recommends movies, but there have been a few times where my friend, James, has recommended movies to me. James introduced me to Guy Ritchie and his work because he’s a fan. He recommended I watch “RocknRolla”, one of his two favorite Guy Ritchie movies and I found it to be very entertaining. “RocknRolla” has a lot of original scenes that no other filmmaker has thought of before. Scenes that can make you laugh. Guy Ritchie is all about having a good time when it comes to making movies and he likes his movies to be fun.
The opening credits are cool to watch and that’s because Guy Ritchie cares how they look and go. A lot of actors have seen Guy’s previous films, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” and they wanted to be apart of Guy Ritchie’s fun. A lot of actors would go to Guy begging to be involved with his next project, except for Gerard Butler. Guy Ritchie never heard of Gerard Butler until he saw him in “300”. Guy thought Gerard put a lot into his performance in “300” and he loved his abs. Gerard wanted to work with Guy Ritchie, but he likes to take a look at the script before getting involved with a project to see if it’s something he would go for. My friend, James, say Gerald’s character, One Two, is the glue that holds all the other performances together.
A lot of Guy Ritchie’s movies take place in his home, England, and he does a good job at representing his country. Guy Ritchie’s movies from “Lock, Stock” to “RocknRolla” involve thugs as well. They are not apart of the mafia. As a mater of fact Tom Wilkinson’s character, Lenny Cole, a head mobster of London, says a clever line in “RocknRolla”, “What do you think we are…..gangsters?” James says “Guy Ritchie paints a vivid picture of the seedy underbelly of the London criminal underground. His collection of misfits in this movie carryout a miasma of criminal activity with each character involved in a series of thefts that increasingly escalate into a violent storm of quirky character development and gangsterish glee.”
One of the main subjects of Guy Ritchie’s previous film, “Snatch”, was a diamond and “RocknRolla” has a valuable object as well. It’s this painting, although you don’t get to see what it looks like, but judging by the looks on the characters’ faces it looks like it could be worth millions.
Thandie Newton plays an accountant, Stella, who is really good at her job. Thandie thought of Stella as having things so good in her life that she gets bored with everything. Thandie was glad she did get to have some fun with the character during the dance scene between her and Gerald Butler. Thandie had so much fun with the dance sequence. The dance sequence was also a challenge for Thandie because she had to have a straight face the entire time she was dancing.
Gerald Butler had fun with the dancing as well. Guy Ritchie would be dancing behind the camera while the dance sequence was shooting. He kept throwing different dance moves at Gerald and Thandie.
Stella and One Two are sort of a thing. You see them together a lot doing business. They don’t flirt with each other or anything like that, they talk business. Stella and One Two have intercourse, but only for five seconds. Basically it’s just close ups of their faces. The scene was supposed to have more to it, but Gerald was feeling ill the day they shot the sequence and he didn’t want to get Thandie sick. Guy was ok with that because he is not big on sex scenes.
Johnny Quid is the stepson of Lenny Cole and Johnny is rumored to be dead, but he’s alive. Actor Toby Kebbell, who plays Johnny, would starve himself to lose weight and make himself skinny because the character is a junkie and a lot of them are skinny. Toby would only eat one meal a day for the past nine weeks.
Johnny Quid you could say is hardly afraid of anything. If he’s in a situation where his life may be in danger he’ll act like a clown, probably because of the drugs that are in his system. Johnny Quid will stab someone with a sharp pencil either for self defense or to teach someone a lesson for messing with him. Using a pencil as a weapon is one of those ideas I call original.
James said Mark Strong is one of the standouts in “RocknRolla” and as always a classy performance that gave it some extra definition. Mark Strong’s character I would say has always been there for Johnny Quid since he was a boy like getting him out of trouble.
My favorite scene with Mark is when he is teaching other guys how to give someone a proper slap in the face if they have disobeyed or screwed something up.
When the idea for “RocknRolla” came to Guy Ritchie he had a trilogy in mind. Guy already developed two scripts for both “RocknRolla” and it’s sequel. He also wanted to do a third movie. At the end of “RocknRolla” it says “The RocknRolla will return in The Real RocknRolla”. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened or may not ever happen. It’s been more than a decade since “RocknRolla” was released and there hasn’t been any news on a sequel. Honestly I think one “RocknRolla” is good enough. The studio probably didn’t shut it down. “RocknRolla” was able to make twice as much past it’s budget and studios like it when they make money off of the movies they finance.
My rating on “RocknRolla” is five out of five stars.
