REVIEW: Guns, gangsters, London: word on the street is that Guy Ritchie is back on form. And maybe, if you're a Ritchie fan, Rocknrolla will give you that fix you were missing but this latest offering from the Lock Stock director is a disjointed, patchwork-quilt of a movie which tries too hard to put style before substance.

In fact it all feels a bit dated; as though Ritchie has followed the 'How to make a gangster movie' handbook (if there is such a thing), and it's this 'colour by numbers' approach that creates a sense of deja-vu. It would appear Ritchie has delved into his DVD collection, picked out the best styles from other directors, and weaved them all together – a dance scene between Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton's characters screams Pulp Fiction (Tarantino is his inspiration after all), while the flashing narrative is pure Tony Scott, and scenes of a slow-motion drug-taking haze reeks of an homage to Trainspotting.

It's this failure to pick a style and stick with it that leaves us zig-zagging through a lack-lustre script with little connection or consistency between scenes – and little care for the characters who are pretty one-dimensional and caricatures in a microcosmic world. And any time we do try to settle into the story and wait for it to unfold,
Ritchie takes us off again on another tangent.

Tom Wilkinson plays flashy crime boss Lenny who attempts to pull off a real estate scam with a Russian mobster who, as it happens, is involved in the beautiful game.

The fall-out from their underground transactions and brown envelope bribes results in a near-farcical romp involving a missing painting, a crackhead rock star and a bunch of opportunistic tough guys all looking to make a quick buck.

While there is some of that Ritchie British humour it's sparse and overdue when it comes, and is a poor pay-off for the weak opening half hour which drags; call me old fashioned but a beginning, middle and end is usually a good bet when it comes to film-making. But instead Ritchie serves up a mish-mash of scenes complete with voiceover to move the story on.

The fabulous Tom Wilkinson, while bringing some kudos to the picture, isn't really developed and is outplayed by Mark Strong, who plays his understudy Archie; Gerard Butler fails to shine, and the Pob-haired, smokey-eyed Thandie Newton earns her money easily playing a character who barely speaks and puffs on a cigarette through every scene.

diamonds

There are a few diamonds in the rough however. The homo-erotic banter between hard men One Two (Gerard Butler), Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) and Mumbles (Idris Elba) is typically British if not a tad school-boyish, but works. A robbery scene where the bad guys struggle to work the gears on the getaway car is good fun, as is the on-foot chase when the Russians go after One Two and co.
But the rest is forgettable and the plot, for wont of a better word, hurtles towards the final climax without much care and attention being paid to the characters' fates other than Ritchie wanting to wrap it all up 'gangsta-stylee' and guns a-blazin.

VERDICT: Before I went to see this movie I had Ritchie written off as a has-been – two hours later, I hadn't changed my mind. On a plus note, Rocknrolla is much better than Ritchie's 2002 Swept Away - but then again, would that be hard?