RocknRolla (2008) Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy Movie Review

RocknRolla (2008)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Gerard Butler in RocknRolla (2008)

He Wanted the Lot

London mob boss Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) has taken control of all the local big real estate business by having various people in his pocket and shafting those who try to make a go of it, well he has to keep people in their place. But things turn bad when during dealings with a Russian developer he is given a valuable painting as a sign of good faith only for it to be stolen probably by his rock star son who is supposed to be dead having fallen over the side of a boat. Meanwhile a trio of small time London criminals known as the Wild Bunch are doing some work for a woman known as the accountant and that work includes stealing money from those Russians.

So once again Guy Ritchie gives us another play on the whole mockney gangster movie where we have different levels of criminals involved in various dodgy dealings, all interweaving, all swearing and many of them getting beaten up. Yep there is no denying that there is a certain level of familiarity to "RocknRolla" but at the same time Ritchie knows exactly what he is doing in this sub genre of movies and to be honest I don't think there is anyone who does mockney gangster better than him.

Tom Hardy and Idris Elba in RocknRolla (2008)

But as I said, that means there is that aspect of familiarity to "RocknRolla" starting with a storyline which on one hand has a London mob boss and his right hand man trying to track down a stolen painting and on the other has the Wild Bunch stealing money from the Russians who own the painting. As such the story over laps and the characters all know one another with Lenny Cole having already tried to shaft the Wild Bunch once over a property deal and loan.

But mentioning shafting and of course we have the typical Guy Ritchie tough guy characters who like to swear, give it the nuts but also do things to make us laugh. As such you have Gerard Butler as are tough guy who thinks he is a ladies man but you also have Tom Hardy as one of the gang who much to Butler's characters surprise likes men. Of course all of this borders on offend humour, where if everything wasn't being done so tongue in cheek it might offend audiences. It is the same with the violence as whilst people take a good old beating there is something comical about it due to the larger than life characters.

What this all boils down to is that "RocknRolla" is a grade A Guy Ritchie mockney gangster movie which highlights just how good he is when it comes to making this sort of movie. But for me whilst entertaining this didn't manage to surpass anything which Ritchie had already done.


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