Film Review: Rock'n'Rolla

Timing is everything. Movies take a long time to make and I'm sure when hapless Guy Ritchie wrote Rock'n'Rolla he had no idea a credit crunch would be upon us by the time his film hit cinema screens.

His film's assertion that London is a city on the rise, that the property market continues to grow and prices will continue to rise has invited derision from the critics, perhaps unfairly. It may be just a case of unfortunate timing but it only serves to underline the gap between Ritchie's latest lovable gangster flick and reality.

After the abject failure of Ritchie's last two films, Swept Away and Revolver, Ritchie has returned to the guns'n'gangsters safety zone of his previous successes but it seems that Ritchie is no longer capable of the things he used to make look easy. He no longer has the wit or the natural storytelling rhythm that made Lock Stock... such a treat. The cracks start to show early on. After years of rip off's and spoofs the decision to fill the film with a heavy handed Cockney voiceover is faintly embaressing in 2008.

Ritchie throws everything into the mix here. Violence, cod philosophy, a fine ensemble cast, a tasteful as you like rock and roll soundtrack and enough ripped, stripped male torsos to make me regret that last tub of cinema popcorn. Unfortunately none of this can compensate for the feeble tossed off plot, cutesy nicknames for every character or the vast amounts of clunky dialogue.

The film is by no means unwatchable. It holds your attention thanks largely to a clutch of charismatic performances, not least Toby Kebbell as the titular Rock'n'rolla, Johnny Quid, lead singer of the cringingly named fictional rock band The Quidlickers. Engaged as you may be, it's impossible to distract yourself from the knowledge that what you're watching is actually a bit, well, shit.

Before the credits roll a caption assures us "Archie, Johnny Quid and The Wild Bunch will return in The Real RocknRolla". You wonder how long Ritchie can keep making terrible movies before people stop giving him the money to make them?