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 250 #136 | Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 13 wins & 7 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:

hatchet | shotgun | antique | debt | gang | 

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Taglines:

They lost half a million at cards but they've still got a few tricks up their sleeve

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Genres:

Crime | Thriller

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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:

5 March 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Juegos, trampas y dos armas humeantes

Filming Locations:

Bethnal Green Town Hall, Bethnal Green, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£960,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$143,321 (USA) (5 March 1999)

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

The character of Big Chris was allegedly based on real life ex-gangster Dave Courtney.

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Goofs

Just before Plank gets shot in the neck with the air rifle, we see him looking to his right with the left side of his neck exposed. But when he is shot, the close-up shows him holding the right side of his neck.

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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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Connections

Referenced in Tosh.0: I Just Shot Myself (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Why Did You Do It"
Performed by Stretch
Courtesy of Trojan Recordings Ltd
Composed by Graham Kirby
Used by kind permission of Palan Music Publishing Ltd
All rights reserved

User Reviews

The essence of late 90's cinema -- hip, highly stylized, VISUAL

Guy Ritchie's hip, highly stylized 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' is a truly remarkable film, not only for its appropriately pyrotechnic camera work, but also for its seemingly flawless, puzzle-perfect script/screenplay. While the picture's main focus is on a group of lads who invest money in a high-stakes, rigged card game and lose, the broader story concerns approximately eight different groups of criminals whose paths cross (more> than once, in some cases) during various illegal pursuits: money, guns, drugs, even revenge. The film is quite violent, both on and off screen, but it's also uniformly humorous throughout. It's important to note that the four central characters (a cook, a card sharp, and a couple of guys who sell "discounted" items) are interested only in acquiring the money to pay off their enormous debt; they kill no one. The same applies to the laid-back college boys who "grow copious amounts of ganja".

The cast is comprised of mostly young, veteran, male actors. In fact, the only female in the film doesn't even speak, though she handles a machine gun fairly well. Sting appears briefly in several scenes as a bar-owning father figure. While his secondary performance is solid, as usual, it is also unmemorable. The soundtrack is first-rate, from the 60's hits of James Brown to the contemporary beats of London's underground. The groovy, pulsating music and lyrics are often succinctly synchronized with the action and dialogue in the film, creating a theatrical rhythm that is fairly uncommon in cinema (from any period).

Critics and audiences over the years have often dismissed stylized camera work as pretentious and unnecessary, stating that it detracts from the story, bogs it down, or pads it; however, the film medium has the luxury of actually "displaying" a story for its audience, unlike the written word alone. It's what the medium is all about -- it's VISUAL. Hence, one of the reasons a filmmaker chooses such visual displays is to "brand" his or her work, in the same way as writers like Cummings, Hemingway or Joyce did with their medium. It's hard to imagine a cinema without Hitchcock, Kubrick, or Scorsese to represent it. To this end, Ritchie has taken his first step in establishing his own brand. His energetic, ultra-contemporary camera work incorporates (through a fresh perspective) such devices as slow motion, fast motion, and freeze-frame coupled with narration. It is at times reminiscent of (and actually expands upon) Martin Scorsese's patented visual stylistics and camera movements, like those found in 'Mean Streets' and 'Goodfellas'. But the similarities with Scorsese's work end there.

Critics' endless comparisons of Ritchie's film with the works of Quentin Tarantino and Danny Boyle's 'Trainspotting' stand mostly unwarranted, as these comparisons take away from the inventiveness and originality of 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. Ritchie's film is a much more involved, complex, layered work than the aforementioned comparisons. While Tarantino's films are very strong on dialogue, screenplay, and editing, they often lack creative camera work and direction. Boyle's 'Trainspotting' does have a resembling "feel" to 'LS&TSB', but aside from its Great Britain origins, there really is no need for comparison. 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' is essential viewing.