"A Story of Sex, Thugs and Rock 'n Roll."
Features: DVD, Widescreen
"I own this town." But owning is getting expensive for old-school London gangster Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson). A wealthier foreign mob is moving in with a riverfront property swindle. A small-timer (Gerard Butler) and his crew think they can play both sides and become big time. Now add a hard-as-ice accountant (Thandie Newton), a rocker playing dead to boost sales, wannabe music moguls (Jeremy Piven and Chris Bridges), a missing painting and a mad mosh of money and muscle, and you've got a real RocknRolla. From Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) comes a fierce and funny caper, a smash-mouth cinematic smackdown of sex, thugs and rock 'n roll.
"A cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper." Joe Leydon, Variety
"A sharp comedy as well as a punk-pulp spree." Kyle Smith, New York Post
"If you're a fan of the early Ritchie comedy-crime thrillers, then this is not only right up your alley, it's a long lost relative returning home." Mark Bell, Film Threat
"Ritchie concocts a crime-jungle demimonde that's organically linked to the real world, and it's a damn fun one to visit." Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"...much more involving than your typical Tarantino ripoff." Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
Editor's Note
Guy Ritchie returns to form with this cockney crime caper starring Gerard Butler and Tom Wilkinson. Lenny Cole (Wilkinson) is a bungling London crime boss who calls the shots in London's underworld. We learn all about Lenny from Archie (Mark Strong)--his second in command--who serves as the film's sly narrator. When a wealthy Russian property dealer by the name of Uri (Karel Roden) looks to Lenny for help on a major new deal, Lenny is eager to assist (for a very large fee, of course). Uri agrees to pay, and as a show of faith, he insists that Lenny borrow his "lucky painting." Uri then asks his accountant, Stella (Thandie Newton), to transfer the money to Lenny, but things quickly go awry when two crooks known as Mumbles (Idris Elba) and One Two (Butler) intercept the money before it reaches him. To make matters worse, the lucky painting has mysteriously been stolen, and the number one suspect is a crack-addicted pop star, Johnny Quid, who is presumed dead. Violent hijinks ensue as Lenny desperately tries to locate the painting, Uri calls in some sadistic thugs to recover his money, and Johnny Quid suddenly resurfaces. Men are battered with golf clubs, fed to crawfish, and attacked with machetes, and a surprise twist ending neatly ties up the whole bloody mess.Fans of Ritchie will likely be very pleased to see him return to his SNATCH-style of filmmaking. ROCKNROLLA has the same frenetic, humorous edge as the film that made him famous, though critics might complain that this particular style is starting to look a little dusty. Regardless, ROCKNROLLA features many fine performances, and once you get past the rather slow beginning, it kicks off into an entertaining and amusing romp.
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