Snatch: the film that started Guy Richie's film cult following

Guy Ritchie is the mind behind blockbuster films like Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur, and the latest Disney film Aladin. However, it is his first 2 feature films back in the 2000s that brought him fame and created his film cult following.

After the success of his debut “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels”, Guy Ritchie becomes one of the most promising directors worldwide. As a result,

by the time he was about to shoot his second film “Snatch”, he was so famous that even Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt called to ask for a part.

With a much bigger budget than his first film, Guy Ritchie brought his style to the extreme. “Snatch” broke the UK box office record on its release and won Guy Ritchie the Empire Film Award for Best Director.

The most mind-blowing part of “Snatch” is the complication of its plot. With around 100 minutes of running time, there are more than 30 characters and more than a dozen different storylines. What connects all these characters and storylines is a massive 86 carats diamond (The diamond becomes 84 carats at the end due to a dog's digestion).

The diamond is initially stolen in Antwerp by "Franky four fingers", who brings it to London. Once there, immediately it is pursued by an American "businessman", Cousin Avi, his British cousin, Doug the Head, and later by his local hired sidekick, Bullet Tooth Tony. An ex-KGB agent Boris the Blade also gets inside information about the diamond and hires a group of inept thieves with a pet dog to go after it. To further complicate matters, we are introduced to bare-knuckle boxer Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), hired by Turkey(Jason Statham) and Tommy for an underground fight with sadistic crime boss Brick Top (Alan Ford), whose bookie gets robbed by the inept thieves and later also joins to go after the diamond. Part of the fun is watching how and sometimes why all of these characters interact and seeing what happens when things don't go as planned.

Here is a picture made by David Ryan Anderson about the web of relations in “Snatch”

I know how you feel after looking at this web of relations. But don’t get flinched, every film can be deconstructed. With more than 30 characters and a dozen different storylines, everything falls into two main storylines. One is the "Diamond” line centered around "Franky four fingers" (Benicio Del Toro); The other one is the "Boxing” line centered around Turkey (Jason Statham) and Mickey (Brad Pitt).

The "Diamond” line:

Franky FourFingers is an addicted gambler. Gambling is also why he gets his nickname four finger(one was cut off due to gambling). After robbing the diamond in Antwerp, he boards a plane and brings the diamond to London, where he looks for a buyer. To defend himself, he goes to Boris to buy a gun.

What he’s not aware of is that he’s falling into a trap by Boris, who already knows about the diamond and lures Franky with "inside information" about gambling on a boxing match. As a seriously addicted gambler, "Franky Four Fingers" naturally could not resist the temptation.

At the same time, Boris arranges a group of inept thieves with a pet dog to rob the bookie where "Franky Four Fingers" is going to bet. The deal is that the thieves will keep whatever they get from the bookie while Boris will get Franky’s briefcase.

The “Boxing” Storyline:

Turkey (Jason Statham), on the other hand, agrees to do a fight with Brick Top, the boss of underground boxing who likes to kill people and feed them to pigs.

However, things go astray. Turkey’s fighter gets into bare-knuckled boxing and gets blown out of consciousness by One Punch Mickey.

Without a fighter, Brick Top is unquestionably going to feed Turkey to pigs.

So Turkey chooses to put One Punch Mikey in the ring. But since now he’s in debt to Brick Top, Mikey has to go down in the fourth. But again One Punch Mickey K.O.s Top's fighter with another “One Punch” in less than 20 seconds.

Now Turkey’s in serious debt to Brick Top,

This underground fight is the one "Franky four fingers" tries to gamble on. And the bookie the thieves rob of is owned by Brick Top. As a result, all the characters and storylines cross with one another. Now Brick Top is also after the thieves, Boris, and the diamond.

How did Ritchie put his most complicated story together?

While Each of the “diamond” and “boxing” storylines is a complete story, Ritchie tears them apart and then mixes them using characters and coincidences. This kind of multiple narrative seems trivial and complicated, but by tearing the stories apart and reconstructing them, Guy Ritchie gives the audience a unique cinema experience. What makes it even funnier is his use of coincidences to link the parallel narrative, which brings satire. No characters seem to be able to escape from karma.

Let’s discuss one of the most complicated yet funny scenes in “Snatch”. Three cars were driving on the street, and each of them is for a specific purpose.

With Turkey leading in the front, Turkey and his partner Tommy are going to Boris’s office to buy a gun because Boris sold them a fake one that couldn’t fire. With Boris in the trunk, Avi and Bullet Tooth Tony are on their road to fetch the diamond from Boris's office, while the 3 inept thieves are following them also targeting the diamond because otherwise they will be fed to pigs by Brick Top after robbing his bookie. The fates of the three groups are turned upside down by a car accident when Turkey throws out a box of milk, which accidentally hits on the front windshield of Avi’s car.

The absurdity of this scene makes us laugh, but at the same time, we feel something deeper. Every person struggles for his own interest, but no one seems to escape karma, and each person's actions have an effect on another, which in turn backfire on themselves.

Watch the scene below.

Guy Ritchie likes to use fast editing to speed up the plot of the film, throwing a lot of shots containing tons of information to the audience in a split second. For example, when Avi, the contact of "Franky four fingers", flies from New York to London, Guy Ritchie edited 9 shots of different locations into a sequence of only 5 seconds, showing Avi's anxiety.

This unique visual storytelling technique also has a significant influence on the famous English director Edgar Wright. Check out this scene from Hot Fuzz.

Here is another example. Started with one zoom into the face of the "Franky four fingers"’, then follows with six static pictures, Guy Richie tells a whole story about "Franky four fingers" ’s obsession with gambling in the most efficient way.

Guy Ritchie also likes to combine fast motion and slow motion together with his editing, giving the audience a thrilling, fist-to-flesh fight experience. The audience can feel both the speed and the power of the blow, hence, the pain.

After “Snatch”, this became one of Guy Ritchie's unique editing styles and was often used in his later work. For example, the unique style makes the boxing fight scene in Sherlock Homes one of the most memorable scenes from the movie.

Check out the scene below: