RocknRolla

ROCK N ROLLA is a great time at the movies.

Like LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, ROCKNROLLA is a British thug drama, though drama may be the wrong word. This isn’t a film about the human condition, and it isn’t a film about real people with real problems. It’s a game, a Rube Goldberg device, a chance to set up a bunch of characters in impossible situations and see how everything works itself out. And while that kind of movie can be a grinding bore of plot machination, ROCK N ROLLA hums like a finely tuned engine.

Why? I’ll chalk it up to two things: witty and well-written dialogue, and propulsive direction and editing. The dialogue seems like the kind of stuff that I’d enjoy reading as much as seeing performed, though the performances (by “The Wire”’s Idris Elba, Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, and Tom Wilkinson, among others, do it credit. The direction and editing, which combine for the look of the film, are alive with energy and excitement, like the kind of storyteller
who’s so caught in the moment that the words tumble out of him at nearly the speed of thought.

So here I am, four paragraphs in (if you count the lede), and I have yet to say what the movie is actually about. You know what? It doesn’t matter what the movie’s about, any more than it matters what a good storyteller’s tale is actually about. What matters is that it’s a tale from a good storyteller.

That’s enough for me.