Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

A botched card game in London triggers four friends, thugs, weed-growers, hard gangsters, loan sharks and debt collectors to collide with each other in a series of unexpected events, all for the sake of weed, cash and two antique shotguns.

Director:

Guy Ritchie

Writer:

Guy Ritchie

Stars:

Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran

Top Rated Movies #139 | Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 13 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jason Flemyng	...	Tom
Dexter Fletcher	...	Soap
Nick Moran	...	Eddy
Jason Statham	...	Bacon
Steven Mackintosh	...	Winston
Nicholas Rowe	...	J
Nick Marcq	...	Charles
Charles Forbes	...	Willie (as Charlie Forbes)
Vinnie Jones	...	Big Chris
Lenny McLean	...	Barry The Baptist
Peter McNicholl	...	Little Chris
P.H. Moriarty	...	Hatchet Harry
Frank Harper	...	Dog
Steve Sweeney	...	Plank
Huggy Leaver	...	Paul

Storyline

Four Jack-the-lads find themselves heavily - seriously heavily - in debt to an East End hard man and his enforcers after a crooked card game. Overhearing their neighbours in the next flat plotting to hold up a group of out-of-their-depth drug growers, our heros decide to stitch up the robbers in turn. In a way the confusion really starts when a pair of antique double-barrelled shotguns go missing in a completely different scam.

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Plot Keywords:

cockney accent | shotgun | hatchet | antique | money | 

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Taglines:

A Disgrace to Criminals Everywhere.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexuality and drug content

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 December 1998 (Germany)

Also Known As:

Bube Dame König grAS

Filming Locations:

13-15 Park Street, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£960,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£941,638 (UK) (28 August 1998)

Gross:

$3,650,677 (USA) (21 May 1999)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Summit Entertainment, Steve Tisch Company, The, SKA Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min 120 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Stephen Marcus later makes an appearance in Fast & Furious 6 (2013), whereby during the end Jason Stathams character is introduced.

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Goofs

When Winston opens the security gate, he leaves the keys in the gate, then after Dog butts him and drags him to the stairs, Winston still has the keys in his hand. When he gets to the top of the stairs, the keys are no longer in his hand.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Bacon: Right. Let's sort the buyers from the spyers, the needy from the greedy, and those who trust me from the ones who don't, because if you can't see value here today, you're not up here shopping. You're up here shoplifting. You see these goods? Never seen daylight, moonlight, Israelite. Fanny by the gaslight. Take a bag, c'mon take a bag. I took a bag home last night. Cost me a lot more than ten pound, I can tell you. Anyone like jewelry? Look at that one there. Handmade in Italy, ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

In the closing credits, the character names in the cast list are shown entirely in lower-case letters with no initial capital letters.

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Connections

Spoofed in The Pyjamas: Lok Stok U-Shtei Mechonot Kvisa (2006)

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Soundtracks

Walk This Land
(Remix)
Performed by Ez Rollers (as E-Z Rollers)
Written and Produced by A. Banks, J. Hurren and K. Richards
Vocals: K. Richards
Rhodes: A. Sharpe
Flute: D. Philp
Scratching by DJ Cosygroove
Published by Moving Shadow Music
(p) & © 1998 Moving Shadow Limited

User Reviews

Have a butchers...

I was a total and complete sucker for this film.

If I were to write and direct a movie about gangsters or crime, this would be it. I wouldn't change one damn thing. Not a thing. Everything in this film was, to my eye, perfect - casting, the camerawork, the excellent dialogue ("It's been emotional.")

Now I don't have much to compare this to, and I've heard some criticism that it basically draws quite heavily from older British crime dramas. I've got a bunch of these on my queue to rent, but I doubt you could make a crime film better than this.

This film oozes with style, class, dark humor, plot twists and turns, and doesn't drag one bit. The casting and characterization is perfect, and Ritchie isn't afraid to move the cameras around; no pretense is really made here at "realism" - Ritchie doesn't mask the fact that it's a film and he runs with it.

I really don't think of myself as easily impressed, and I have seen a hell of a lot of films in my time, but this one instantly made my Top 10 after only a single viewing. Yes, I'm raving about it, and while it may not be "spiritually enriching" or contain any deep sociological content (which I actually do look for in films), somehow it still scores as one hell of a film; memorable and entertaining, and stands up well to multiple viewings.

I am a bit dismayed to see some of the marketing of this film comparing it to other things like Quentin Tarantino films or Trainspotting. It really does it a disservice because this film really is its own phenomenon and stands on its own two feet; if anything it is similar to Trainspotting and Tarantino films only because it actually has its own bold style.

Can't recommend it enough.