If the name Guy Ritchie doesn’t ring a bell, think Mr. Madonna. Despite his matrimonial ties to "Miss Controversial Pop Star," Guy Ritchie makes his own Hollywood comeback with his latest crime comedy, Snatch. Though many filmgoers may label Snatch simply a spin-off of Ritchie’s first Hollywood breakthrough, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, (which was also pegged by some as a Tarantino knock-off), Snatch delivers exactly what it promises. That is, it is slick, racy, and often-grotesque violence blown so far from reality that it’s comical, if not hilarious in its dark and twisted ways.

Once again the focus is on a group of misfit gangsters, who are this time all vying to grab hold of a stolen 84-karat diamond. The diamond is first seen in Antwerp in the hands of the shady gambler, Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro). However, when Franky arrives in London for the trade off, we are introduced to the other key criminals whose greed and stupidity incite them to do just about anything for the precious diamond. We meet Turkish (Jason Statham), the narrator of this intertwining storyline, who is unwillingly forced into this rat race due to a business deal gone badly. Though Turkish and his naïve sidekick are far from being hard-hitting criminals, they inevitably get mixed up with the sadistic pros known as Brick Top (Alan Ford), Doug the Head (Mike Reid), Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina) and Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedzija). Each of these oddly named characters are uniquely gifted in their criminal methods and their interaction with the debutante thugs perfectly sets the mood for this gangster comedy filled with sharp wit, stylistic editing and energetic performances from a cast of both unknown and big screen names.

For those who enjoyed Lock, Stock, there are enough familiar faces in Snatch to compensate for the heavily accented British slangs that fly in and out at a speed perhaps too quick to catch. Ironically enough, Brad Pitt, inarguably the most familiar face on screen, is the hardest to decipher as he spits and slurs in a " gypsy dialect" that is unique to his character, the bare-knuckle boxer Mickey O’Neil. As the grundgy, backwoods Mickey, Pitt is reminiscent of his role in Fight Club, only this time his toughness is bred out of poverty and innocence. Consequently, Pitt is incredibly amusing and manages to render Mickey as equally likable as the misfit gangsters who continually goof up on their schemes. Another notably decrepit, yet entertaining character, is Brick Top, a cold-blooded ringleader with a penchant for pigs and a highly developed technique for disposing of human corpses. Despite such colorful characters, Ritchie’s sense of violence is expressed with clever dialogue rather than graphic visuals. As such, the violence and coarseness in Snatch is more cartoonish than gory.

Sure, some of Ritchie’s direction and plot development is formulaic, but rather than being predictable or redundant, Snatch fully engages the audience with clever dialogue and stylistic direction and editing applied to a story that is as twisted as it is amusing. Rather than labeling Ritchie as a "one type of movie" director, I would argue that he is setting his own style by doing what he does best, perhaps in efforts to break his own boundaries and to set new standards. Snatch deserves a **** rating.

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