Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

What ensues is an ultimatum; a clumsy caper with so many characters they'd overwhelm a lesser movie; and a tremendous amount of mayhem that, while putting our boys squarely in the line of fire, really does stay aggressively this side of funny.

It roars and ignites and hits the ground running.

A n inverse cost-to-quality ratio seems to have been operating in "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," Guy Ritchie's debut feature about four cocky young men coming up against major thugs in London's East End.

Once you sort out the main characters and the plot kicks into action, it becomes clear that under the shameless MTV pyrotechnics lies a structure as intricately crafted as a Feydeau farce. Guy Ritchie has a giddy gift for storytelling.

I was thoroughly entertained while I was watching it, and I haven't hated myself since. And that is something, though I don't know exactly what.

Expect plenty of laughs and some edge-of-your-seat sweats, but not a whole lot else.

The fact of the matter is, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is one of the most important British films in recent memory, or at least one of the most influential.

...dense, impenetrable...

Guy Ritchie's scrappy, twisty, cheerfully ultraviolent tale of hapless small-time English hoodlums might be his best work.

The humor is as rude and crude as the characters, but the picture certainly isn't lacking in energy.