Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, plus Sherlock Holmes

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998 UK

This will not be the only time this year that I write about a Guy Richie film. I love all of his movies with two exceptions. Swept Away and Revolver. Anyone who's seen either of those might appreciate my reluctance to endorse them. But Lock Stock..., Guy's first full feature directing job, is an excellent movie. It reintroduced contemporary audiences to the British Crime genre and spawned a flood of imitators. It also introduced audiences to Jason Statham, and thank God for that. The bald/balding community needed a poster-boy to show the world that we can look good and be cool too. The thing I like most about this movie is the humor. You wouldn't think that a story about a guy getting screwed over by a mob boss and therefore plans to rob another group of thugs who are planning to knock off a hydroponic marijuana operation would be so funny right? It's a modern day comedy of errors. I am happy to see that Guy Richie has continued to make dark yet funny films as his career has progressed. Everyone should see his newest movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I liked the first Sherlock Holmes movie he did a little more than this new one, but there are some signature Sherlock Holmes elements in there that are straight out of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. In particular, the stumble that Sherlock and his companion take near the end of the film. Anyone who has read those stories shouldn't be too disappointed in this modern retelling. I think the films are true enough to their inspiration.

I know the intention of this blog is to cover one film a day for 366 days, and I have so far in this post referenced at least three films. I only do so because I saw Game of Shadows a few weeks ago and don't plan on watching it or Sherlock Holmes again this year. Although I like them both I think my time would be better spent watching films new to me. One of my goals in this project it to see new movies and so far I've written about a movie I've seen many times and another one based on a book I'd read and a remake of a foreign film I'd seen. It was probably good to start this blog with two posts about films and stories I am very familiar with. Now that I've established the process I think its time to branch out into less comfortable territory.