# Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

### reviewed by
Cheng-Jih Chen

The too clever yet too convoluted title is the first problem. The second problem is the first twenty or thirty minutes, as our cast of characters is introducted, with each of the individual quirks and defining characteristics actually told to us by a Cockney-accented voice-over. Yes, the film blithely violates the whole show-not-tell rule. No, they don't get away with it. There's really only one main character for whom they don't do the describe-explicitly thing with, and his whole persona is spoiled by this godawful line about cats and sour milk. Dialog that goes clunk.

So, LSA2SB takes too long to get into the story, spending half an hour on what should be obvious. The story itself kicks off at a high stakes card game, whick one of our young heroes loses badly. The trick in losing is that our hero borrowed heavily from one of the local crime bosses to call, and Our Gang has to come up with half a million pounds (800,000USD or 740,000EURO) by the end of the week. The bulk of the movie is about their plan to rob their neighbors, who, in turn, are planning to rob this gang of potheads. The plot becomes more intricate -- and the movie gets its too cute name -- when the only firearms Our Gang can get is a pair of antique shotguns. Yes, it is a British film, not an American one, or else Our Gang could just pop into the local Wal-Mart for new hunting rifles. Of course, the ease at which they can heavily arm themselves would take away from the central premise of the movie, that of a gang of amateur robbers going about their business with pitiful equipment.

The plot, actually, does start moving about an hour into the movie, as crossed wires, bad scheduling, and comic coincidences actually starts driving the long-expected humor of the film. It is a comedy, but it'd be hard to tell until closer to the end than is good for it. Even then, it's not _that_ funny. I will admit that some of the camera work is very nice, with some well placed overcranking and undercranking, and a freeze frame or two thrown in. The high point of this sort of thing, though, is probably the card game itself, and that's where the movie gets underway; the cute tricks get used up relatively quickly.

I believe this movie has been touted as a British "Pulp Fiction", or maybe some cross between Tarantino and the very energetic "Trainspotting". I suppose any recent movie featuring violent gangsters with guns and droll humor gets compared to Tarantino, but this just doesn't fly in this case. LSA2SB shows little touch with the characters beyond the ham-fisted voice overs, and the onscreen violence lacks a certain flair, lacks a certain impact.

Oh, it is somewhat refreshing to see deflation finally starting to work on the amounts of money being bandied around movies. For years, we've had Armed Robber A getting away with $20 million and Terrorist B demanding $10 billion. The height of silliness is probably in "Die Hard 3", with the bad guys knocking over the Fed. It's refreshing to see sums of six figures, albeit in British Pounds. I'm not going to count Dr. Evil asking for one million dollars, though.

Lastly, Sting has a cameo, but I'm not a devout following of Sting, so I'm not sure where he is.

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