Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*** — me. This week we're deep in the London criminal underworld for Snatch (2000) — Guy Ritchie's hyperkinetic, impossibly quotable, perfectly engineered crime comedy that took everything brilliant about Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and somehow made it better, faster, funnier, and even more gleefully chaotic. This film goes so hard it practically vibrates.
Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, the film weaves together two intertwined plots set in the London criminal underworld: one following a stolen 86-carat diamond being chased by seemingly everyone in Europe, the other following small-time boxing promoter Turkish (Jason Statham) who gets dangerously entangled with the sadistic gangster Brick Top (Alan Ford) after Mickey O'Neil — an absolutely incomprehensible Irish Traveller bare-knuckle boxer played by Brad Pitt — refuses to go down when instructed. Benicio del Toro is Franky Four Fingers. Vinnie Jones is Bullet-Tooth Tony. Dennis Farina is the furious, perpetually jet-lagged Cousin Avi. Rade Šerbedžija is Boris the Blade — or as he's better known, Boris the Bullet Dodger. Stephen Graham, Lennie James, and Robbie Gee round out an ensemble so perfect it barely seems real.
We're going all in on everything: how Brad Pitt — who loved Lock, Stock so much he personally approached Guy Ritchie asking for a role — ended up as Mickey after he couldn't master a London accent, leading Ritchie to create the entirely new character of an unintelligible Irish Traveller specifically for him, the film's astonishing editing which operates like a comedy drum machine set to maximum, Brick Top's pig speech which remains one of the most casually horrifying monologues in British cinema, and why this film — alongside Lock, Stock — permanently defined a certain kind of cool, working-class British crime comedy that nobody has convincingly replicated since.
We're also asking the big questions: is Snatch better than Lock, Stock? Is Brad Pitt's Mickey O'Neil actually comprehensible on repeated viewings? And is Brick Top one of the great movie villains of the 2000s?
Whether you're a Guy Ritchie devotee, a Brad Pitt fan, a Jason Statham completist, a British crime cinema enthusiast, a Vinnie Jones admirer, a lover of hyper-stylized ensemble comedies, or just someone who wants to spend an hour arguing about which character is your favourite — this episode is absolutely essential.
Topics covered: Snatch 2000 | Guy Ritchie | Brad Pitt | Jason Statham | Vinnie Jones | Benicio del Toro | Alan Ford | Brick Top | Mickey O'Neil | Bullet-Tooth Tony | Cousin Avi | Boris the Blade | best British crime films | best crime comedies ever | London criminal underworld | Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels comparison | Guy Ritchie filmography | Brad Pitt accent | incomprehensible Brad Pitt | best ensemble casts | bare-knuckle boxing films | diamond heist movies | best film editing | fast-paced editing | most quotable movies | best 2000s films | British gangster films | cult classic movies | movie review podcast | film analysis | Tarantino-style films | best movie villains 2000s | Stephen Graham early career | pig speech scene
Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and settle it: Snatch or Lock, Stock — which is the better Guy Ritchie film? And how many times did you watch Mickey before you understood a single word he said?
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