Music Everywhere
Tuesday 29 May @ 12:10:56 |
 OVERLOOKED GEM: “Snatch”
by DWIGHT HOBBES
How “Snatch” stayed below the mainstream radar defies logic. This flick has it all: a strong cast with a pair of A-List stars to boot, an airtight script and smart directing. On top of which, it’s just plain funny as hell. If you haven’t caught up to Brad Pitt and Benicio Tel Toro in this sardonic romp about a diamond heist, hurry up and visit your friendly, neighborhood video shop.
The caper--heisting a priceless gem, then selling it for an outlandish amount of money--is straightforward, simple and, handled right, easy as falling off a log. Enter folk destined--as in absolutely fated--to screw everything up. Then sit back, eat some popcorn, slurp some soda and enjoy all uproarious hell breaking loose.
If you’re one of those snobs who dismiss Brad Pitt as a just another pretty hunk, prepare to be disabused of your delusion. In “Seven,” Pitt persuaded as a police detective who unwittingly lands the hands of a homicidal maniac. As Achilles in “Troy,” he gave the larger-than-life character amazing, understated gravity. Here, he’ll have you laughing your natural ass off. Hard-ass, bare-knuckle brawler/boxer Mickey O'Neil is as quick with a winning smile as he is with a sucker punch. And is a firm believer in revenge.
Benicio Tel Toro (“Traffic,” “The Way of The Gun”) further broadens his wide range, playing ice-heisting, happy-go-lucky gambler Franky Four Fingers to the hilt. Dennis Farina (“Midnight Express,” “Manhunter”), ever effective playing roles of pragmatic hard-noses, gets a free paycheck. And runs all the way to the bank with it: Pinpoint timing and that gruff, trademark veneer of his do wonders for Cousin Avi, the dapper, tough-as-nails mastermind behind the job. Alan Ford almost steals the movie, doing a priceless job as corrupt boxing promoter Bricktop, about as casually mean a son of a bitch as ever drew breath.
Our luckless protagonist Turkish, is the only one around him with their feet on the ground and not looking to screw the next guy. And, in the no-good-deed-goes-without-being-punished department, he finds himself contending with one disastrous mishap after another--for which he is not to blame, yet, nonetheless, will be held accountable. Your heart goes out to the poor bastard as Jason Statham (“The Italian Job”) deftly understates a stoic, straightman portrayal in this comedy of errors.
Director-screenwriter Guy Ritchie is not what you’d call a mentally well individual. He devises-–and surehandedly directs--a rollercoaster script so zany only someone mentally suspect could have conceived it. Rounding it all out, dead on their mark, are Stephen Graham as Turkish’s useless sidekick Tommy, Robbie Gee and Vinnie Jones, who, since he left English football, has proven himself to be a damned good actor.
This is one of the best, humorous crime capers on the books. The “Ocean’s 11” remake franchise (the original wasn’t bad, either), with Pitt, George Clooney and Andy Garcia has to get honorable mention. For that matter, there’s been “Cotton Comes To Harlem,” starring Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier and Redd Foxx--and the crazy as an outhouse-rat “Harlem Nights” with Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Della Reese and Foxx. Bottom line, though, the last time anybody made a crime-comedy this good, George Segal, Robert Redford and Moses Gunn did William Goldman’s “The Hot Rock” with director Peter Yates orchestrating sheer chaos. Hell, as long as you’re going to the store, pick up both. Advisory: go to the bathroom before you sit down. Otherwise, you liable to pee all over you’self.
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