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 (Benicio
Del Toro) has gone AWOL with a perfect 86-carat diamond and since
Doug the Head (Mike Reid), who pretends to be Jewish, can't be trusted
to get it back, Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina) makes tracks for London
to 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 to
gangster Brick Top (Alan Ford), who runs an illegal bookies and is
happy to chop you up and feed you to the pigs if you don't pay up, so they're
forced 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 a
dive in the fourth round he has his own agenda.
Vinny (Robbie Gee) and Sol (Lennie James) are a couple of losers
caught up in trying to get the precious stone, whose replica handguns don't
quite cut it when it counts, Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedzija),
universally acclaimed as a "sneaky fucking Russian", who can get you anything
you need, is also after the prize booty and there's cameos from
Trainspotting's
Ewen Bremner and
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'
Jason Flemyng.
Of course, the question is, is it as good as
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ?
Nearly, is the answer. It took me until around 40 minutes into the film to
really warm to it and it didn't feel like the characters were as clear-cut as
in that film, but although it doesn't take a genius to realise that Snatch
is 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 some
spectacular 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 to
Doug 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 the
style used and not a criticism of the transfer. There are artifacts occasionally
noticeable in dark scenes, but on the whole the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen
presentation 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 when
director Guy Ritchie is trying to be more than a bit flashy with the
visuals as well as with yet another soundtrack to die for including
The Stranglers' Golden Brown,
The Specials' Ghost Town,
10cc's Dreadlock Holiday
as well as his own lady wife's Lucky Star.
Disc one contains a feature-length Director/Producer Commentary, Weblink
and a Stealing Stones Feature Option which inserts three deleted scenes
back 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 Song
plays back the snippets of music heard throughout the film but are listed
as the scenes in which they appear rather than by track names, there's a 4:3
two-minute International Trailer, a 4:3 60-second Teaser Trailer
and four brief TV Spots, each in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.
24 minutes of Interviews are included in the form of soundbites from
Ritchie, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Farina and many other key cast members, as are
scores of pics in the Photo Library all set to the theme music and
there's a humourous "Making Of" which runs for 25 minutes.
The Production Notes provides plenty of info about the story, the cast
and crew, there are six Deleted scenes with optional commentary from
Ritchie and they last a total of nine minutes, Filmographies for
principal cast and crew members, three Storyboard comparisons with
multi-angle option so you can watch either the film, the storyboards or both
together, five minutes of raw Behind-the-scenes (B-roll) footage of
work in progress, plus some inventive hidden extras which are easy to find and
worth a good laugh, the best being the cornucopia of cuss words.
The disc contains 28 chapters, moving menus with music and subtitles in
English and, of all languages, Hindi.
DVD Trivia: At-a-distance, seeing Brad Pitt on the cover I can't help
but think of one half of Chas N Dave.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
