Snatch

Guy Ritchie's follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a fast-talking, multi-strand crime comedy set in London's underground. A stolen 86-carat diamond sets off a chain reaction of double-crosses and violence among a cast of scheming characters. Jason Statham plays Turkish, a small-time boxing promoter caught between a ruthless gangster named Brick Top (Alan Ford) and an Irish Traveller bare-knuckle boxer, Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt). Dennis Farina brings comic menace as Avi, a New York diamond dealer hunting for his lost stone. The film cost $100 million to produce but earned only $83.6 million worldwide, making it a modest box office performer. Still, its sharp dialogue, kinetic editing, and colorful rogues' gallery turned it into a cult favorite. The R-rated film mixes brutal violence with absurd humor, all set to a thumping John Murphy score. [edit]

Turkish and Tommy run a small-time boxing promotion outfit in London, always looking for the next big payday. Their world gets turned upside down when they cross paths with Mickey O'Neil, a bare-knuckle fighter from a Traveller camp who can knock out any opponent in seconds. The local crime boss Brick Top, who runs the underground fight scene with an iron fist, orders Turkish to make Mickey throw a fight. But Mickey has his own ideas about honor and doesn't take orders from anyone.

Meanwhile, a diamond heist in Antwerp sets another story in motion. Franky Four Fingers, a jeweler with a gambling problem, is carrying an 86-carat diamond for his American boss Avi. On his way to New York, Franky stops in London for a back-alley dice game run by Boris the Blade, a Russian gangster with a taste for double-dealing. Boris convinces two bumbling ex-cons, Sol and Vinny, to rob Franky. The heist goes wrong in spectacular fashion, and the diamond ends up in the hands of a pawnbroker named Doug the Head.

Avi, growing impatient, flies to London with his enforcer Bullet Tooth Tony. They start shaking down everyone connected to Franky, while Boris tries to sell the diamond to a Chinese buyer named Mr. Kim. Turkish and Tommy, still dealing with Brick Top's demands, find themselves dragged into the diamond hunt when they buy a caravan from the Travellers that happens to contain the stone. The film weaves these threads together with rapid-fire dialogue, sudden violence, and darkly comic twists. Everyone wants the diamond, but nobody can hold onto it for long.[edit]