Snatch (2000)

You wonder how to combine a crime movie with a comedy in a most outstanding way? Then ask Guy Ritchie, for he surely knows the answer to this question. Snatch that followed his successful debut movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels presents a perfect combination of grim humor, plunders, murders, kidnappings and skirmishes which are part and parcel of the crime movie genre. Apart from the general style, the two movies are united by practically the same team of actors, headed by brutal Jason Statham. In his movie the famous British director throws light on the dashing life of English racketeers.

The action begins in Antwerp, Belgium, where the gang of Frankie "Four-Fingers" (Benicio del Toro) in the course of a heist steals an immense 86-carat diamond and leaves for the British Isles to deliver it to Doug "The Head" (Mike Reid). On its illegal way the gemstone will fall into many different hands, and even into a dog’s stomach.

Apart from the story of the ill-fated diamond, there is one more by-plot in Snatch. Turkish (Jason Statham) owns a casino and promotes unlicensed boxers. He is subordinate to a gangster nicknamed "Brick Top" (Alan Ford), for whom he organizes illegal matches. His protégé "Gorgeous George" (Adam Fogerty) unexpectedly yields to an amateur gypsy pugilist Mickey O’Neil (Brad Pitt), and Turkish engages Mickey into his business. He is to participate in contract matches and to capitulate in the 4th round. But rebellious Mickey plays his own game and gains matches one by one.

The characters of Snatch are numerous, each of them being special and inimitable. Brad Pitt appears again in the role of an illegal fighter after the cult Fight Club that made him a first-class star. Though Mickey O’Neil doesn’t have as much screen time as his fantastic Tyler Durden, this personage has his own charm. Benicio del Toro, whose brutal look helps him create outstanding images of gangsters and criminals of all kinds, plays a gambling addict who always gets into most absurd situations. This role has much in common with that in Sin City released in 2005. In this masterpiece of Robert Rodriguez del Toro’s character "Jackie Boy" Rafferty, or, to be more precise, his dead body also presents one of the main objects of the black humor. Another fantastic gangster image is created by Vinnie Jones. Bullet-Tooth Tony is by all means a colorful personage.

All in all, Snatch is not a hundred-per-cent neo-noir movie, like Sin City or, for instance, Pulp Fiction, but it surely comprises some features of this original genre. Chaotic firing, hilarious dialogues with an abundance of obscene words, murders by mistake – all these things make the movie funny and scary at once.

Another thing that makes the movie exceptional and unforgettable is a great soundtrack. The song "Lucky Star" from Madonna’s debut album proved to be a kind of compliment from the part of Guy Ritchie to his then-spouse.

Snatch was mainly approved by critics and film-goers and enjoyed the status of a high-grossing film not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the US. The only problem was that some critics considered the similarity between Snatch and Guy Ritchie’s earlier work Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels too evident. Snatch was referred to as "a new arrangement of the same song". However, the movie deserves to be praised for many things and remains very popular among the fans of Guy Ritchie, Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro and other movie connoisseurs.