Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (R18)

Reviwed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Cast: Jason Flemyng, Nick Moran, Vinnie Jones

Director: Guy Ritchie

Machinegun murders, a drug rip-off which gets ripped off, a youngster coming a cropper against the local Mr Big. Now where would you think such a movie might be set?

Try London's East End for a change, in this firecracker of a black-comedy-cum-crime-flick. It's also a celebration of all things English-wide-boy that is smart and funny enough to let you in on the joke and on the movie's unfamiliar milieu -- a setting last ruled by some of Michael Caine's earlier films and The Long Good Friday.

Actually there's a decidely 60s feel to this, and not just because the come-a-cropper Eddy (Nick Mason) looks like Steve Winwood in his Spencer Davis Group days. Or the likes of Ocean Colour Scene on the soundtrack giving the action a rev-up with echoes of the golden age of Brit r'b'b and the Small Faces.

Essentially -- and it's a labyrinthine plot of no easy description -- young card-sharp Eddy loses a lot of his and his friend's money at a rigged game against local underworld guv'nor Hatchet Harry, and they are given a week to come up with 500,000 quid.

If they don't they will suffer at the experienced hands of Barry the Baptist and Big Chris (football 'ard man Vinnie Jones, who makes good use of his malevolent enigma and gets to deliver the movie's classic line).

Eddy and mates hear their neighbours are planning to rip off of a dope-growing operation, so they figure they'll get in on the action to pay the debt.

Only it's a small world after all, and the bodies start piling up -- some shot by the most British of armaments, the Second World War-era Bren gun (no doubt recently purchased from the New Zealand Army).

A sub-plot involves a couple of comic-relief Scouses and their efforts to obtain two antique shotguns for Hatchet Harry.

And there's an occasional beginner's guide to Cockney slang via the occasional subtitle.

Oh, and there's Sting as Eddy's Dad, looking like he'd really much rather have Jones' part.

It's all delivered with such energy, economy and black wit you tend to allow for the tortuous bends the plot puts itself through. Less a Brit detour-into-Tarantino-land, more an adrenalised Men-Behaving-Criminally, and quite brilliant for it. * * * *
-- Weekend TimeOut, 28/11/98