RocknRolla is Guy Ritchie’s attempt to shake up the crime-comedy formula he built on his own reputation. It doesn’t quite work. The film piles a dozen leads, a stolen painting, a crooked real estate scheme and a dead rock star into a single weekend, and mostly it just gets in its own way.
Gerard Butler plays One-Two, the leader of a gang called the Wild Bunch. Tom Wilkinson plays Lenny Cole, the aging mob boss who runs London’s real estate racket. Thandiwe Newton is Stella, the accountant who betrays her boss Uri Omovich, played by Karel Roden. Mark Strong narrates as Archy, Lenny’s right-hand man, and Idris Elba is Mumbles, One-Two’s partner. Tom Hardy rounds out the bunch as Handsome Bob, a closeted gay man with a crush on Butler’s character. Toby Kebbell plays Johnny Quid, the musician who fakes his own death, and Ludacris shows up as Mickey, one of his former managers.
Trailer, via Warner Bros. Rewind.
The Scheme That Drives It
The plot centers on a fixed land deal. Uri Omovich plans a scheme that will generate millions of pounds, and he agrees to pay Lenny Cole €7,000,000 to bribe a corrupt councillor. As a sign of trust, Uri lends Lenny his “lucky painting.” Then Stella double-crosses him, hiring the Wild Bunch to steal the money while she moves it. Johnny Quid, meanwhile, steals the painting from Lenny’s office after faking his death, anticipating that the news of his demise will boost his music sales.
Lenny and Archy force Johnny’s former managers, Mickey and Roman, to track him down. In a subplot, Handsome Bob grows close to Stella’s gay husband, a lawyer who knows about a longstanding informant in their criminal world. Bob asks One-Two for a single dance before he goes to prison, since the informant exposed him.
Uri puts Stella back to work, asking her to siphon funds covertly from his holdings. When his moneymen are robbed again by the Wild Bunch, his assistant Victor convinces him that Lenny is probably behind the thefts and is keeping the painting from him. Uri and Victor invite Lenny to a private golf game, where Victor beats him with a golf club and breaks his leg as a warning to return the painting.
The Cast Carries the Mess
The film’s strength is its cast. Gerard Butler brings a physical menace to One-Two, a man who is both a gang leader and a lover caught in a triangle. Tom Wilkinson plays Lenny Cole as a man past his prime, still holding onto power through bribery and violence. Thandiwe Newton’s Stella is the film’s moral center, a woman who betrays her boss for a chance at the Wild Bunch.
Mark Strong’s narration keeps the story grounded, even when the plot spirals. Idris Elba’s Mumbles is a steady presence beside Butler. Tom Hardy’s Handsome Bob is a quiet standout, playing a gay man in love with his boss in a film that barely acknowledges it. Toby Kebbell’s Johnny Quid is a drug addict who fakes his own death, a role that lets Kebbell play both tragedy and comedy.
The film also features Jimi Mistry as the Councillor, Matt King as Cookie, Dragan Mićanović as Victor, Gemma Arterton as June, Nonso Anozie as Tank, David Leon as Malcolm, Bronson Webb as Paul, Michael Ryan as Pete, Jamie Campbell Bower as Rocker, Tiffany Mulheron as Jackie, and Robert Stone as the nightclub bouncer. That is a lot of names for a film that runs 114 minutes.
A scheduling conflict kept Jason Statham out of the film. He had appeared in three of Ritchie’s earlier movies, and his absence is felt. The film needed a man of action to ground the chaos, and the Wild Bunch lacks that anchor.
Where It Falls Apart
The problem is the sheer amount of plot. Ritchie tries to juggle a stolen painting, a double-crossing accountant, a fake death, a corrupt councillor and a violent confrontation on a golf course, all in a single weekend. The film is overstuffed, and the pacing suffers for it.
The film’s tagline promises “A story of sex, thugs and rock ‘n roll,” but it delivers mostly thugs and a lot of talk. The rock star angle, Johnny Quid’s music career and his fake death, gets less screen time than the property scheme that drives the plot. The film spends far more time on the mechanics of bribery and theft than on the music business it claims to be about.
A Mixed Reception
Critics were divided on the film. Some praised the cast and the energy, while others found the plot too complicated and the tone uneven. The film’s UK release on 5 September 2008 reached number one in the box office in its first week, a sign that audiences were willing to see Ritchie’s brand of crime comedy regardless of what critics said.
| Element | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Cast | Ensemble leads bring charisma | Overstuffed plot dilutes focus |
| Plot | Ambitious scheme involving bribery and theft | Too many moving parts, hard to follow |
| Tone | Mixes crime thriller with comedy | Uneven, shifts between genres |
| Setting | Modern London’s criminal underworld | Overcrowded, too many characters |
The Verdict
RocknRolla is a film with a great cast and a weak script. The performances are strong, but the plot is a mess. The film tries to do too much in too little time, and the result is a movie that feels scattered rather than cohesive.
The film’s best scenes involve the cast working together, especially when Butler and Hardy share the screen. The worst scenes involve the exposition-heavy narration that Ritchie relies on to explain the scheme.
Key Facts
- Title: RocknRolla
- Director: Guy Ritchie
- Writer: Guy Ritchie
- Runtime: 114 minutes
- Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
- UK Release Date: 5 September 2008
- Box Office Rank: Number one in the UK in its first week
- Critical Score: 5.3 of 10
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