Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

Elevator Pitch: A bunch of young geezers in the East End elect one of their number to engage in a high stakes card game, with the intent of wimning a fortune, but the game is rigged and instead they lose. How are they to get half a mill together? Fortunately they overheard that a gang of bigger villains is going to rob some pretty amateur drug dealers of their ill gotten gains and so decide to take them on. Almost incidental to the plot are the two smoking barrels, a couple of very valuable shotguns which the geezers use to hold up the villains, having no idea of their value.

Content: There is no sex and very little nudity, although the major villain, Hatchet Harry, owns a sex shop, and so various sex toys and some pictures are on display. There is a great deal of violence, effectively to establish the street cred of the various villains, and some gunfights with hand guns shot guns and a Bren gun. Quite a bit of drinking in a variety of establishments. The intent, even of the violent scenes is that they be comedic.

A View: This film is No 145 on the IMDb Top Rated Movies List and it won a number of what one might call ”minor” awards. There are a lot of people in it who are to become quite famous later including the director, and the finale is ingenious. For me it is a bit too geezerish (if that’s a word). It could be that when the film was made the approach was fresh, but by now it has become cartoonish rather than menacing.  However, it is one of those movies which have set a style and so an essential watch for film buffs, even at the cost of a download.

Additional Info: This is a first full length film for both Jason Statham, an ex Olympic diver, and Jinnie Jones an ex Premier division footballer.