Starring Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Sting, Vinnie Jones, Steven Mackintosh
Written By: Guy Ritchie
Directed By: Guy Ritchie
Studio: Universal/Focus
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Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was the first DVD I ever bought and is now one of my favorite movies. I didn’t even have a DVD player at the time but I wanted to see this movie badly and watch it on my college roommates DVD player. Universal has now released a director’s cut of the film, with footage never seen in theaters before.

Lock Stock is an eclectic mix of violence, comedy, card playing, and drama. Plus, this movie is the feature length directorial debut from Guy Ritchie. You know, the guy who married Madonna and stopped making movies (it seems). I can see how being married to her might be a handful and how he may not be concentrating on directing. ANYWAY, the movie stars Nick Moran as the card shark Eddie, who’s getting ready for a big game against the London underworld boss, Hatchet Harry and some other players. Along to support Ed and give him money to get into the game, is Bacon (Jason Statham), the hustler of the group. There’s “Fat” Tom (Jason Flemyng), the entrepreneur of the bunch and then there’s Soap (Dexter Fletcher). Soap is the Chef, and has quite a few skeletons in the closet. Ed plays the card game to the very end, and gets suckered into debt with Harry, who’s been cheating the whole time. Ed loses and has to pay Harry back a half a million pounds in a week or the group loses a finger a day. The guys come up with a scheme to rob from their neighbors, who are a bunch of “thieving bastards.” Will the foursome survive Harry, the thieving bastard neighbors, a repo hit man, and the cops in the end? Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself!

I loved this movie the first time I saw it and still love it to this day. It just has so many different elements to it that makes it such a cult classic. Whoever I show this movie to, they end up liking it. It’s got humor, violence, vulgar dialogue, dark intense scenes, big guns, drugs, and afros! The only thing missing from this is endless amounts of nudity but there is some ass in it. Besides all the cool things in the movie, the film was also shot really well! All the different angles were creative like scenes from Soap’s pots in the kitchen or Tom’s oven. Plus the way the film was stopped and slowed down made the movie even more cooler. It definitely had a music video feel to it and it should since Guy Ritchie used to do videos (I believe?). Even the soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard. Guy Ritchie definitely has great taste in music that’s for sure. Lock Stock reminds me of Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting because they all have great soundtracks, have that violently funny humor to their movies, and they all are cult favorites. Pulp Fiction and Lock Stock also have many plots and characters in them, and it all comes together in the end. Lock Stock’s last 20 minutes are great because it pulls in all those things together and you finally realize what’s gonna happen. The only thing I don’t really like is the VERY end. It’s such a tease and gives you cinematic blue balls because you don’t know how the film really ends. I guess it’s suppose to leave that up to your imagination but I just think it’s a cop-out. The acting in the film was great as well. This was the first movie for Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones, and I knew they were going to go far after seeing them in Lock Stock. Who knew two non-actors would become huge movie stars after this film. Just everyone in the film had good comedic timing with the dialogue and had the right expressions when saying their lines. The script was very strong as well and had lots of funny dialogue & lines. “I can’t fucking believe this, will everybody stop getting shot”, “I asked for a refreshing drink, not a fucking rain forest” and “if the milk turns out to be sour, I ain’t the wimp to drink it” are all classic lines from the movie. Now just think that the whole movie is like that!

As far as the extra footage added into the movie; some of it was good and some of it was pointless. The very first scene is a new scene and it’s Ed talking about cards with people (who end up being policemen). Then it goes to the Bacon street hustling scene, which I still think is a better opener for the film. A lot of the extra footage wasn’t really necessary to put back into the movie because I felt the movie was strong the way it was. It’s always cool to see extra footage regardless if it’s any good. I thought the best deleted scene added into the movie was when the Alan explains to Ed why Harry suckered him into the debt and why Ed’s father and Harry hate each other. Ed’s father beat Harry in big card game and got his bar and lots of money, and then Harry ended up having a heart attack. Harry obviously survived the heart attack, and he vowed to get him back since then. So you finally figure out why he was cheating in the first place. But other than that, the deleted scenes were pretty unforgettable.

The extras in the film include a featurette on the cinematography and a montage of all the cursing. I would have thought if there was going to be a director’s cut DVD released, there would have been all these extras like the UK versions had. The cinematography featurette was really interesting because that’s one of the best things in the movie. To me, its the way it was shot & how it looked is why I liked the movie a lot (besides all the other reason I mentioned above). The colors of the film looked awesome and the camera angle & techniques were awesome! It’s amazing what they achieved with the cinematography with such a low budget. The short montage of all the cursing was funny to watch but in the end, I wish the American version of the DVD had A LOT more features on it.

If you own the original Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels DVD and want to see new footage added into the movie, than this is the version to buy. Or if you own a region 2 DVD player, get the UK DVDs because there are more extras on those. Regardless of the lack of extras, this movie is something you need to watch over and over again, and what better way to do that than own it on DVD!

Features:
One Smoking Camera – A featurette on the film’s cinematography
Lock, Stock and Two F**king Barrels – A compilation of all of the film’s expletives

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC

Video:
Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: I love the end when Rory Breaker and everyone go to the guy’s flat, with the music of Zorba the Greek playing. The card game was fun to watch, and the thieves robbing the pot-growers was hilarious.
Rating: NR
Running Time: 120 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: