Audrey and I wanted to see Rachel Getting Married tonight but when it took approximately twenty-five minutes to get our bill at dinner, we missed the screening and ended up seeing Rocknrolla instead.
- This movie was long, boring, and terribly unfunny. Despite this, huge segments of the audience were killing themselves laughing for reasons unknown to me. I haven’t found Guy Ritchie’s other movies to be drop dead hilarious in the past, but I could see the humour in them and would find myself laughing favourably throughout. This, not so much.
- Gerard Butler is a terrible fucking actor. And why must they make him dance? It’s not endearing or cute or charming, it’s painful and awkward and unfunny.
- Tom Wilkinson as the snitch was painfully obvious right from the start.
- In the last two days I’ve developed a weird enjoyment of Mark Strong as he played the head of Jordanian intelligence in Body of Lies (and, quite honestly, possibly stole that film from DiCaprio and Crowe) and Tom Wilkinson’s second-in-command in this. I like this fellow.
- The whole “Russians cannot be killed” gag got old really, really quickly.
- I feel like the cast of characters in this movie would have come about if the characters in Ritchie’s other movies got together and blew each other away in a giant mass mafia killing spree, leaving these tools to pick up the pieces and run the London underground world because someone has to do it but there isn’t anyone left who’s competent. You don’t get the feeling that anyone in this movie is spectacularly clever or quick-witted, just that they all probably got put in the slow stream in primary school and spent their time throwing rocks at each other after school instead of learning how to read.
- It’s over, Guy Ritchie, give it up. It’s okay to have peaked at Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. After all, very few people ever get the chance to direct feature films, let alone make a good one. You still have something to be proud of! But Rocknrolla ain’t it.