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Dom Robinson reviewsSnatchStealin’ Stones and Breakin’ BonesDistributed by
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: CDR 30789
- Running time: 99 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 28 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, Hindi
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: 1 * DVD 9, 1 * DVD 5
- Price: £24.99
- Extras: Director/Producer Commentary, Stealing Stones Feature Option,Weblink, “Making Of”, Deleted scenes with optional commentary,Behind-the-scenes (B-roll), Interviews, TV Spots, International Trailer,Teaser Trailer, Storyboard comparisons with multi-angle option, Jump to a Song,Photo Library, Production Notes, Filmographies, plus hidden extras.
Director:
- Guy Ritchie
(The Hard Case, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch)
Producer:
- Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay:
- Guy Ritchie
Music:
- John Murphy
Cast:
- Franky Four Fingers: Benicio Del Toro
Cousin Avi: Dennis Farina
Bullet-Tooth Tony: Vinnie Jones
“One Punch” Mickey O’Neil: Brad Pitt
Boris the Blade: Rade Serbedzija
Turkish: Jason Statham
Tommy: Stephen Graham
Brick Top: Alan Ford
Doug the Head: Mike Reid
Vinny: Robbie Gee
Sol: Lennie James
Mullet: Ewen Bremner
Darren: Jason Flemyng
Tyrone: Ade
Snatch is a film that improves as it progresses.
Guy Ritchie intertwines two stories. One, Franky Four Fingers (BenicioDel Toro) has gone AWOL with a perfect 86-carat diamond and sinceDoug the Head (Mike Reid), who pretends to be Jewish, can’t be trustedto get it back, Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina) makes tracks for Londonto find it with the help of local hardman Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones).
On the other side of the fence, two-bit unlicenced boxing promoters Turkish(Jason Statham) and Tommy (Stephen Graham) are in debt togangster Brick Top (Alan Ford), who runs an illegal bookies and ishappy to chop you up and feed you to the pigs if you don’t pay up, so they’reforced to organise a dodgy bare-knuckle fight with “One Punch” Mickey O’Neil(Brad Pitt) doing their bidding, although while he’s meant to take adive in the fourth round he has his own agenda.
Vinny (Robbie Gee) and Sol (Lennie James) are a couple of loserscaught up in trying to get the precious stone, whose replica handguns don’tquite cut it when it counts, Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedzija),universally acclaimed as a “sneaky fucking Russian”, who can get you anythingyou need, is also after the prize booty and there’s cameos fromTrainspotting‘sEwen Bremner andLock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels‘Jason Flemyng.
Of course, the question is, is it as good asLock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ?Nearly, is the answer. It took me until around 40 minutes into the film toreally warm to it and it didn’t feel like the characters were as clear-cut asin that film, but although it doesn’t take a genius to realise that Snatchis like that one but with a change in plot device, some actors and a few names,you do find yourself in comfortable home territory and can settle down for somespectacular scenes involving coincidence, mistaken identity and double-crossing.Perhaps a couple more viewing might push the film score up a notch.
Finally, the best line in the film comes from the delivery, of Cousin Avi toDoug the Head, with: “Shut up and sit down, you big, bald fuck!”
The picture looks a little washed out throughout the film, but that’s thestyle used and not a criticism of the transfer. There are artifacts occasionallynoticeable in dark scenes, but on the whole the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreenpresentation looks superb.The average bitrate is a great 7.25Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 with frequent use of all speakers whendirector Guy Ritchie is trying to be more than a bit flashy with thevisuals as well as with yet another soundtrack to die for includingThe Stranglers‘ Golden Brown,The Specials‘ Ghost Town,10cc‘s Dreadlock Holidayas well as his own lady wife’s Lucky Star.
Whereas neither release ofLock Stock and Two Smoking Barrelshad a great deal of extras, this one certainly does.
Disc one contains a feature-length Director/Producer Commentary, Weblinkand a Stealing Stones Feature Option which inserts three deleted scenesback into the film in their appropriate place when the diamond symbol appears.
Disc two is where the real spicy meatballs are unleashed. Jump to a Songplays back the snippets of music heard throughout the film but are listedas the scenes in which they appear rather than by track names, there’s a 4:3two-minute International Trailer, a 4:3 60-second Teaser Trailerand four brief TV Spots, each in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.
24 minutes of Interviews are included in the form of soundbites fromRitchie, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Farina and many other key cast members, as arescores of pics in the Photo Library all set to the theme music andthere’s a humourous “Making Of” which runs for 25 minutes.
The Production Notes provides plenty of info about the story, the castand crew, there are six Deleted scenes with optional commentary fromRitchie and they last a total of nine minutes, Filmographies forprincipal cast and crew members, three Storyboard comparisons withmulti-angle option so you can watch either the film, the storyboards or bothtogether, five minutes of raw Behind-the-scenes (B-roll) footage ofwork in progress, plus some inventive hidden extras which are easy to find andworth a good laugh, the best being the cornucopia of cuss words.
The disc contains 28 chapters, moving menus with music and subtitles inEnglish and, of all languages, Hindi.
DVD Trivia: At-a-distance, seeing Brad Pitt on the cover I can’t helpbut think of one half of Chas N Dave.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Visit theOfficial Snatch Website
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.