In the late 90s and early 2000s, Guy Ritchie rose to prominence with a one-two punch of Brit-gangster crime flicks. There was the relatively low-budget and indie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998, and then there was the film that showed Ritchie could work within the Hollywood system, 2000’s Snatch. The latter gave him the benefit of A-list stars like Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro while still letting Ritchie re-team with Lock, Stock actors like Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones also run around the British underground as witty gangster with violent attitudes get into various conflicts. If you were a teenager in 2000, Snatch. seemed damned cool and funny. But like frosted tips, things that seemed cool at the turn of the millennium look different now, and Snatch., which just hit 4K, seems like a steppingstone to Ritchie figuring out an identity that still threatens to overshadow his body of work.
For those who haven’t seen Snatch. or need a refresher, the film is basically a chase for a giant diamond, but it’s also an odd cobbling together of various plotlines to get there. The film opens with underground boxing promoter Turkish (Statham) and his pal Tommy (Stephen Graham) in a bad way after trying to get a new camper van goes sideways and a pikey, Mickey (Pitt), knocks out their fighter, leaving them vulnerable to the very bad “Brick Top” (Alan Ford). Meanwhile, a heist crew has stolen a massive diamond that keeps changing hands between guys with names like Boris the Blade (Rade Šerbedžija), a trio of idiot criminals he hired to rob the diamond, and Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina), who intended to get the diamond from original thief Franky Four-Fingers (Del Toro). Comic mayhem and violence ensue.
Although the new 4K gives the film a nice polish, I wouldn’t raise it to “home theater demo” material. Ritchie films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or Aladdin would make far better use of HDR, and while you do get some nice detailing, the grit and greys of Ritchie’s London here don’t make Snatch. a terrific showcase for your system. To be fair, the film still looks like it was made in the 2000s, but it doesn’t exactly have a timeless quality, so while the 4K gives the film a nice sheen and will now be the go-to version for fans of the film, it’s hard to make the argument that you simply must upgrade if you already owned the film on Blu-ray (if you’ve only got the DVD, and like the film, then yeah, get the 4K).
But it’s still fascinating to revisit a film that Ritchie made over 20 years ago and looking at the trajectory of his career. In some ways, he’s still the “stylish crime caper” guy, and that style has served him well in making films like Sherlock Holmes as well as delightfully bonkers stuff like King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword or the criminally underseen Man from U.N.C.L.E. It’s almost strange to see him direct something as staid as Aladdin and perhaps even stranger to try and do the Snatch. thing again with The Gentlemen. When you look at Snatch. you see a film that Ritchie has outgrown, and yet one that still kind of defines him for better and worse.
Which brings us to a question I don’t really have a good answer for: Is Ritchie an important filmmaker? He’s arguably a successful one—you don’t get to keep making movies for over 20 years if you’re not, but has he really pushed himself, or has he settled comfortably into a particular groove? I was encouraged by this year’s Wrath of Man, not because it was the greatest film ever, but because it was at least Ritchie trying to do something different. Yes, it was humorless and grim, but that was a different shade for the filmmaker, and to do a crime picture that hard-edged felt far more exciting than the recycled Gentlemen, which felt dated and desperate by comparison.
When you come back to Snatch., you see more of a starting point than a towering work. It’s not so much that the film has “aged poorly” as much as it has simply aged. It was of a time and place for a genre and a director, and now it’s a bit of a time capsule rather than a timeless movie. There are still some jokes that work and you can see why Ritchie stuck around, but on 4K, Snatch. feels more like a curiosity than a vital work of cinema.