Ritchie’s latest stylish but too convoluted

Published 5:56 pm Thursday, October 30, 2008

When he married Madonna, Guy Ritchie assumed the kind of uncool mojo you wouldn’t wish on the worst filmmaker in the world. Which he wasn’t; “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” was a good time.

Now that the marriage is, tragically, kaput, Ritchie is off shooting a high-profile Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. The problem is, while his career is surging, we have to sit through the films he’s already made.

Last year it was “Revolver,” the kind of abomination that kills less resilient careers. This year it’s “RocknRolla” — an improvement, but still a cardboard exercise in gangsterism.

The movie is narrated by Archy (Mark Strong, an increasingly valuable British actor — he was in “Body of Lies” and “Sunshine”), a cool-as-a-meat-locker assistant to Lenny (Tom Wilkinson, late of “Michael Clayton”).

Lenny’s a bellowing dealer in privilege and graft. Anybody who wants to move real estate in London has to go through Lenny, who clears the permits and pulls the strings.

Insofar as I can follow the plot, Lenny gets mixed up with a lethal Russian (Karel Roden) whose ideas of fair play have nothing to do with ancient ideas of honor among thieves.

The important thing in Ritchie’s script is that a large cast of people keep tripping over each other’s feet. These include a couple of at-large hoods (“300” hunk Gerard Butler, in amusing form, and Idris Elba), a mysterious and chic accountant (Thandie Newton, fresh from impersonating Condi Rice in “W.”), and a couple of American music producers (Jeremy Piven and Chris Bridges).

There are others, of course. The usual gun battles are less epic here than in Ritchie’s past, maybe because the British crime drama has exhausted that stuff. The best joke has to do with a henchman (Tom Hardy) about to be sent to prison, who has a final request from Butler’s character.

Beyond that, people strike cool poses, hip songs play for little bite-sized segments, and the violence is played for laughs. Some skillful actors go full bore at this, so the movie isn’t a complete waste. But it sure doesn’t add up to more than empty “style.” Good luck, Sherlock.