Speaking of cartoons: Gerard Butler's One Two -- that's his name, though presumably not the one his mother gave him -- is kinda the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote wrapped up into one delicious-looking if agreeably dumb package. He and his sidekick Mumbles (Idris Elba) -- also probably not his baptismal moniker -- probably aren't actually the stupidest criminals working London's shadier side, but they ain't the brightest, either. One of their robberies-gone-wrong devolves into the stuff of a seven-minute Looney Toon. The badder-bad guys -- for of course we are meant to cheer on One Two in his felonious adventures, and we do, cuz he's really not such a bad guy -- give chase after One Two heists some cash. Then the chase turns around so many times -- with the upper hand constantly shifting -- that you can barely keep up, you're laughing so hard. It's one of the high points in a flick that is endlessly amusing.
And it's also way less brutal a movie than we've come to expect from Ritchie, a "lack" from whence springs much of the rest of the flick's humor. Which isn't to say that there's none of the ol' ultraviolence here, for there is. (Don't take your grandmother with you to see this one.) But you might call this a crime comedy of manners, what with all the criminals you can barely distinguish from legitimate businessmen, like old-school boss Lenny (Tom Wilkinson, who's never been so funny) and Russian newcomer to the London scene Uri (Karel Roden, dryly amusing). They're cooking up a real-estate deal that's just this side of shady... which is part of the joke, too, and one that's even funnier -- if far more bitter -- now that the real-world just-this-side-of-shady real estate market has collapsed. Lenny, in one moment, is offended to be thought a gangster. In his world -- where it's all "keep the receipts" for the accountant (played by Thandie Newton, crooked like the rest of 'em), and in which thugs who enjoy costume dramas make a ready living scoring hot tickets to West End musicals -- well, maybe Lenny's right to be offended. Being a villain ain't what it used to be; these days, it seems, it's a respectable living.
That's one joke, which is part of Ritchie's big joke, which is that tough guys are smart enough to handle the absurdly circular plot of RocknRolla -- all missed connections and unexpected liaisons -- that we can barely keep up with (and are pleased to be trusted with the disentanglement of), even as it's considered "unkind" to insult the muscle. Sure, the gentility of the golf course turns into a venue for teaching a vicious lesson to a rival, but that's what happens when the bad guys start wearing sharp suits, expecting to be able to conduct their business in the open light of day. After all, we let them. It's our world, and Ritchie's just playing in it. (Rated R)
