Snatch (film)
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Snatch is a 2000 film by British writer-director Guy Ritchie. It features an ensemble cast including Dennis Farina, Jason Flemyng, Adam Fogerty, Alan Ford, Stephen Graham, Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro, Vinnie Jones, Rade Šerbedžija and Jason Statham.
The film is characterised by Ritchie's usual assortment of colourful characters, especially the "pikey" Irish Traveller Mickey (Pitt), Uzbekistani ex-KGB agent and gangster Boris the Blade (or Boris the Bullet-Dodger) (Šerbedžija), professional thief-gambling addict Frankie Four-Fingers (del Toro) and Bullet-Tooth Tony (Jones), who can "find you Moses in the burning bush if you pay him".
Many of the cast members also appeared in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Besides the cast, the films share many of the same ideas and motifs while using separate characters and storylines.
Plot
There are two main plots, one that centres around a very valuable 86 carat (17.2 g) diamond. It is stolen by Franky Four-Fingers (Del Toro) in Antwerp and brought to London, where he and the diamond fall afoul of local thieves and underworld figures. The other revolves around an unlicensed boxing promoter named "Turkish" (named after a plane crash his parents were involved in; an allusion to Turkish Airlines) who finds himself in debt to the local crime boss, Brick Top (infamously known for feeding those who fall out of his favor to his prized pigs) after his boxer Gorgeous George is incapacitated in a dispute with the gypsies over a caravan. Forced to improvise, Turkish and his partner Tommy decide to acquire the services of the very gypsie who knocked out Gorgeous George. As events twist and turn, the two situations blend into one with a chain reaction of events carrying on for each and every character.Detailed Summary
Diamond thief, courier and gambling addict Franky 'Four Fingers' (so-named because he lost a finger due to a large gambling debt) arrives in London en route to New York to deliver a huge diamond to boss Avi Denovitz (Dennis Farina). Franky's accomplice in the diamond heist advises him to purchase a gun from Boris 'The Blade' Yurinov (also known as "Boris the Bullet-Dodger", because, as Turkish explains, he is nearly impossible to kill) upon reaching London. As it happens, his accomplice is the actually Boris' brother, and Boris learns from his brother that Franky has the diamond, and that he will be coming to buy a gun from him. Boris 'The Blade' is advised to steal the diamond by exploiting Franky's one weakness: gambling. While attempting to purchase a gun, Franky is convinced by Boris into placing a bet on an illegal boxing bout as payment for the firearm. Little does he know that Boris has set him up—and hired the inept local pawnshop owners Vinny (Robbie Gee) and Sol (Lennie James), along with their getaway driver, Tyrone (Ade) to rob him when he arrives at the bookies'.
In the mean time, the protagonist (and narrator) of the film, Turkish (Statham), an unlicensed boxing promoter and arcade owner, sends his fighter 'Gorgeous' George (Fogerty), and his best friend and business partner Tommy (Graham), to a gypsy campsite to buy a caravan from Mickey O'Neil, a travelling "pikey", in order to replace his old run-down one. But whilst Tommy and George are leaving with their newly bought caravan, the wheels break off of it. The gypsies refuse to give a refund, but instead agree that Mickey will fight George for the money. Unknown to Tommy and George, however, Mickey is in fact a gypsy bare-knuckle boxing champion. After taking a series of hard beatings, Mickey proceeds to knock out George with a single punch, breaking his jaw, and nearly killing him. Turkish now finds himself in debt to the ruthless local crime boss 'Brick Top' Polford (Alan Ford), as his only fighter is unable to fight in a bout arranged by Brick Top.
Sol, Vinny, and Tyrone show up at the bookies', along with their dog, (who Vinny had recently received after buying some gold chains from the gypsies), to wait for Franky 'Four Fingers' (who was already there). Unbeknownst to them, Franky is knocked unconscious (thanks to Tyrone's poor driving) leaving the three to wait for hours. While waiting in the car, the dog grabs a squeaky toy (to which Vinny responds, "Don't snatch", giving the film its title) and swallows it, causing the dog to squeak from then on. When the three grow tired of waiting, they decide to rob the bookies', but quickly reveal themselves to be ludicrously incompetent robbers (which is ironic, since Boris' brother specifically instructed him "Don't use idiots for the job!"). To top it off, they discover there is no money to rob as "all bets are off". So all does not go according to plan; with the bookies' having no money after the fight is declared void, Sol and Vinny setting off the alarm, and discovering the briefcase is actually attached to Franky's arm, the three are forced to kidnap Franky as they flee.
Back at their pawnshop, Vinny and Sol open the case and discover the huge diamond. Boris turns up to collect his prize, but Sol and Vinny are now reluctant to give him the gem after leaving the bookies' empty handed. In the ensuing argument, Sol and Vinny shout Boris' name, forcing Boris to shoot Franky in the head to prevent his identity from being revealed.
In New York, news that Franky has gone missing forces Avi and his aid 'Rosebud' to hop on a plane to London. Avi—whose main concern is that the last place Franky was known to be was at the bookies'—along with his cousin, jewelry store owner Doug 'The Head' Denovitz (Mike Reid) hire local legendary bounty hunter 'Bullet-Tooth' Tony (Vinnie Jones) to find Franky and the diamond. The fate of the diamond courier is soon discovered and the hunt for the missing stone ensues.
Brick Top, owner of the robbed bookies' and illegal fight organiser now wants revenge on the would-be robbers. After studying CCTV footage, Sol and Vinny appear to be unknown, but Tyrone is easily recognised by Brick Top's cronies. Tyrone is quickly tracked down and has Brick Top's dogs set on him, forcing him to reveal the identity of his accomplices. Bricktop pays a visit to Vinny and Sol's pawnshop, and under threat of being fed to pigs, they promise Brick Top the diamond in exchange for letting them live.
Now in Brick Top's pocket, Turkish and Tommy need to find a replacement fighter, and they soon convince Mickey to fill the role. Mickey agrees, as long as they buy a new caravan for his mother. Brick Top consents to the last minute change in fighters, provided that Mickey loses the fight by going down in the fourth round. (As it happens, this fight was the same fight which was meant to turn a profit for Sol and Vinnie; because the fighters were switched at the last second, all bets were voided.) Mickey does not go down as planned, instead knocking his opponent out in a single punch. This puts Turkish and Tommy further in debt to Brick Top, who sends his gang to smash up Turkish's arcade. Tommy manages to keep Brick Top's heavies at bay, thanks to his gun, although Turkish later questions the effectiveness of the weapon and goads Tommy into seeking a proper exchange from Boris. As punishment to Mickey for not throwing the fight, Brick Top has his mother's caravan torched—while she is sleeping in it. Mickey is overwhelmed by this news, and agrees to fight in the next match to stop Brick Top from doing any more harm.
Elsewhere, Tony soon discovers information regarding the disappearance of Franky, notably the identity of the would-be robbers of the bookies' (where Franky was last seen) from local "grass", Mullet. Avi and Tony pay a visit to Vinny and Sol's pawnshop, who reveal that they were hired to do the job by Boris 'The Blade'. Now Avi and company have the tough task of tracking down Boris...or so they think. Wanting to sell the diamond now in his possession, Boris turns up at the shop of the local diamond specialist—which just so happens to be Doug 'The Head'—as Tony, Avi, and Rosebud are watching on the closed-circuit camera.
Rosebud goes out to attack Boris and get the diamond. However, the scene instantly cuts to Rosebud, Avi and Tony in their car, with Rosebud bleeding badly from a wound on his head, and Avi promising to get him to "a nice Jewish doctor". Although the skirmish was not shown, it is implied that Rosebud tangled with Boris and came out the worse for wear, although the three of them did manage to successfully kidnap Boris, with Boris now tied up and blindfolded in the back of Tony's car. They search his house and soon recover the diamond.
Vinny and Sol arm themselves with replica guns with "extra loud blanks" and, along with Tyrone, trail Tony and company in an attempt to steal back the diamond for Brick Top in exchange for their lives. Unknown to them, Turkish and Tommy are also on their way to see Boris, with Tommy wanting a working gun, after previously being supplied with a broken weapon.
The next scene is the only time during the whole film when the paths of the three groups cross, with Tommy throwing Turkish's carton of milk out of the car window after giving him a speech on how "the human digestive system cannot handle dairy products". The carton of milk hits Tony's window screen, causing him to crash, releasing the car boot and freeing Boris, who walks blindly in the road. Amid concerns that the replica guns aren't going to do anything, Sol decides to test out the pistol, firing the blank, the noise of which smashes all the car windows. In the resulting confusion, Tyrone hits Boris and almost crashes the car.
(The three events in this scene are shown out of chronological order. First we are shown Sol firing the blank gun and smashing the windows, causing Tyrone to lose control and crash into a man walking in the street. Then we are shown Tommy throwing the milk carton out of their car window and the milk carton hitting a car behind them, which crashes. Then we are shown Avi and Tony in their car talking about killing Boris, when the milk carton hits their windshield and they crash. After a brief blackout, Avi wakes up, sees Boris walking in the street with his blindfold on, says, "Is that Boris?" and then Sol's car runs over Boris.)
Meanwhile, Turkish and Tommy arrive at Boris' house, only to find that Boris is not home. But then Boris walks through his front gate (injured, but walking upright and not seeming to feel pain). When Tommy confronts Boris about the dud gun Boris sold him, Boris does not even look at Tommy, instead grabbing him by the groin and shoving him up against the wall. As Tommy falls over in pain, Boris walks into his house and comes out holding an AK-103 Assault Rifle, muttering Russian swear words, and walks back towards the crash scene.
Tony and Avi escape to a nearby pub, leaving the car and the now dead Rosebud (who was impaled on a sword during the crash). Tony makes a phone call to be picked up while Avi goes to the washroom to clean himself up. While waiting for Avi, Tony is confronted by Vinny, Sol and Tyrone, who want the diamond. Unfortunately for them, Tony notices that their guns have 'Replica' written down the side and points out that his has "Desert Eagle .50".
Downhearted, the trio make their escape out the back door and run into Avi, as well as Boris. Overhearing the commotion, Tony shouts, "Avi! Pull your socks up!" (meaning for him to duck), and shoots through the wall several times. Boris is wounded and falls, but Tyrone ducks in time, and in the confusion, Vinny and Sol steal the case from Avi and flee. Proving that he is the 'Bullet Dodger', Boris survives seven direct shots from Tony. Tony, muttering "For Fuck's sake," in exasperation, carefully aims and finally kills him. Tony then tries to shoot Tyrone, but has lost count of how many shots he had fired, and finds he has no bullets left with which to shoot Tyrone. An exasperated Tony walks away to help Avi and comments, "You lucky bastard", to Tyrone, leaving him in the hall. (Although Tyrone is unharmed, he is not seen again in the film.)
Fearing what Brick Top could do to them, Vinny and Sol are about to take the diamond to him, when they are caught by Tony, who takes them back to their shop. When they get there, they claim that their dog has swallowed the diamond. In the ensuing chaos, during which Tony attempts to gut the dog and Vinny tries to plead for its life, Vinny finally concedes that they, in fact, still have the diamond, and presents it to an overjoyed Avi. However, when Avi sits down to inspect the stone with glee, the dog mistakes it for a treat, leaps forward, and snatches it from Avi's grasp, swallowing it. The dog then leaps out the window, and Avi grabs Tony's gun and fires it randomly at the dog as the dog gets away. Following the dog's escape, Avi shouts for Tony to follow him as he rushes out the door, but Tony does not follow him. Avi suddenly realizes he has accidentally shot Tony and killed him. Now, with Tony dead and the dog escaped, Avi disgustedly returns to America. When the customs official asks him if he has "anything to declare" at the inspection, Avi remarks, "Yeah. Don't go to England."
On the day of the boxing fight, Mickey is again supposed to go down in the fourth round, and again he does not, instead taking matters into his own hands and knocking his opponent out cold. Immediately after the match, Turkish, Tommy, and Mickey leave the ring in an attempt to save their lives by fleeing. Little do they know that Brick Top is already waiting for them outside. However, unknown to everyone, Mickey and his gypsy comrades planned an ambush of their own, and things are reversed, with Brick Top and most of his gang getting killed by the gypsies. The gypsies flee the scene, and Turkish realizes that Mickey had planned the whole ordeal, having put money on himself to win the fight as revenge for Brick Top killing his mother.
The next day, Turkish and Tommy arrive at the campsite, looking for Mickey. The campsite, however, was deserted, the gypsies having fled the area to avoid the authorities after their massacre of Brick Top and his men the previous night. The police arrive, also looking for the gypsies, and ask why Turkish and Tommy are there. Then the dog arrives back at the campsite, and thanks to Turkish's quick thinking and his noticing the wandering hound, he tells the police they are walking their dog. Satisfied with their answer, the police allow them to leave. As they are driving away, they notice Vinny and Sol, who were on their way to retrieve the dog (knowing it would return to the campsite), and end up caught by police with Franky’s dead body in the back of their car.
In the final scene (which was also the beginning scene when Turkish started the narrative), both Turkish and Tommy are with a jewel inspector. Turkish's narration explains that because the dog saved them from the police, they kept it, so long as the squeaky toy was removed from its stomach. While removing the toy, the vet found an 84 carat (16.8 g) diamond embedded in its stomach. Turkish and Tommy now plan to sell the diamond to none other than Avi's cousin, Doug, prompting Avi into another flight back to London.
The film abruptly ends before we see any interaction between Avi and Turkish, leaving the (presumably happy) results up to the audience's imagination.
Themes
Snatch is a dark comedy of errors, in which most of the humor results from accidents and confusion. Mistaken identity is not a strong theme of the film (though Sol and Vinny do mistake an innocent briefcase-bearing man for Franky), but deception and misunderstanding underpin most of the plot, as does irony and causality. The strongest example of this is the "bottle of milk" scene, in which Tommy tosses Turkish's bottle of milk out of a car window: this causes Tony's car to crash, releasing Boris from the boot, which causes Sol and Vinnie's car to crash. Tommy is lecturing Turkish on how unhealthy milk is, and declares that he's "doing (him) a favour" by throwing it away, yet he actually causes a great deal more harm than good.
In an earlier scene, Avi and Doug the Head attend a boxing match while looking for Franky Four-Fingers; this is the same boxing match where Mickey knocks out his opponent in one punch, and the same fight where Sol and Vinnie attempt to burgle the bookies'. Had Mickey not previously KO'd Gorgeous George, the bets would not have been cancelled at the bookies', Sol and Vinnie would not have argued with Boris over the amount of money they (didn't) make, and Franky would in all likelihood have never been killed.
Another theme of the movie lies in its cyclic nature. It begins and ends with the same scene (Turkish and Tommy attempting to sell the 86 carat (17.2 g) diamond to Doug the Head). Chapters of the film are punctuated with Avi's flying sequence, which is repeated three times in the movie. The scene in which Turkish, Tommy, and Mickey are coursing the rabbits is a direct contrast with Tyrone being captured by Brick Top's men. However, the rabbit gets away, unlike the unfortunate getaway driver.
One of the film's many hallmarks is its fast pace. Guy Ritchie has said he wanted to make a film with "no fat on it," and so there is almost nothing in the film that is not central to either the plot or the comedy. Abrupt cuts between scenes (and sometimes within scenes), fast-forward camera effects within the two major boxing matches, and short symbol-scenes (such as Avi's five-second flying sequence) are used to streamline the film and move the plot along.
Additionally, Snatch employs the use of theme music for certain characters as a method of introducing them. Turkish is usually preceded by a light, jazzy theme; Boris the Blade's theme music sounds like traditional Russian folk; Mickey is introduced by brass-heavy Gypsy-style music. While most of the theme music occurs at the same moment the character appears, it occasionally is used to give the viewer clues as to who is about to resurface. For instance, when Turkish stands up to say "Let's use the fucking pikey", Mickey's theme music begins to play in the background before he speaks, indicating pre-emptively that the character is about to re-enter the storyline.
The film has several sections where many hours go by and incidents are implied but not shown, noticeably the confrontation between Avi's accomplice 'Rosebud' and Boris the Blade, as well as the resulting kidnapping of Boris by Tony and Avi. Additionally, there are scenes in which previous interactions among the different characters are inferred, (such as Brick Top's henchman, Errol recognizing Tyrone from the security footage, and Bullet-Tooth Tony's past relationship with Mullet), and are used to further drive the plot, but are otherwise unexplained.
Trivia
Writer-director Guy Ritchie originally had planned to work another plot twist into the film, involving a false diamond that resembles the 86 carat (17.2 g) diamond. However, he eventually decided that the subplot was unnecessary, and all the scenes involving this were cut from the final cut of the movie. Most of the cut scenes can be seen on the extras of the DVD of the film.
Although the three black characters in the film were portrayed as incompetent, the film nevertheless drew much praise from the African-American community, for having all three of its black characters survive to the end of the film, even when a good many of the Anglo-Saxon characters were killed.
In the beginning of the film, the diamond is referred to as weighing 86 Carats, while later on, it is mentioned that the stone is 84 Carats.
External links
- [Movie Tour Guide.com - Maps and directions to Snatch filming locations]
- [Snatchweb.com Sound files from the film]
| Films Directed by Guy Ritchie |
| The Hard Case | Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels | Snatch | Swept Away | Revolver |
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