A good movie

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I was quite eager to check it out again. Back in those days, Guy Ritchie was hailed as the next best thing but, unfortunately, I'm afraid he never really fulfilled my expectations even if he always had a steady career. Anyway, this movie was his directing debut but even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I tend to think it is actually rather overrated. The point is that it is so similar in tone and style to 'Snatch', Ritchie's only true masterpiece, that I tend to be rather dismissive towards his first directing effort. Basically, in my opinion, 'Lock, Stock...' was merely a warm-up, a nice one definitely, but still just a warm-up and not much more than that. Still, it is a fun movie though, no doubt about it. Back then, Jason Statham was not yet one of the biggest action stars in the world and, instead, he played a street-wise smart ass but it was much more interesting than the usual tough guys he plays nowadays. Concerning the plot, it was not bad and entertaining enough but the main assets in this movie were all these colorful characters and the actually sophisticated dialogues full of British street slang. The funny thing with this movie when you watch it after all these years is that it actually does look pretty cheap with its ugly yellow filter which they apparently they never managed to remove, especially if you would compare this movie to Ritchie's more recent work. Anyway, to conclude, even though I still don't think it deserves its spot on the IMDb top 250, I have to admit it is still a fun and entertaining crime comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10