Dennis Farina acts as Avi in the movie
"Snatch," directed by Guy Ritchie.
By Terry Tang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Director/writer Guy Ritchie is riding a hot streak that other
directors would give their chairs for.
The British director’s second feature,
“Snatch,” is about to make its U.S. debut. Besides
being able to cast some of his own friends, he got Brad Pitt to
appear for a relatively minimal fee.
Oh yeah, he also got married last month to some singer named
Madonna.
Amid all the hoopla, the newly married Brit took time out to
talk about “Snatch” at a press junket at the Four
Seasons Hotel. Clad in a navy blue Adidas jacket and toying with
his gold wedding band, Ritchie compared this project to shooting
his first film, “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking
Barrels.”
“All I tried to do in “˜Snatch’ was up the ante
a bit on “˜Lock, Stock’ I had a little bit more money
and extremely famous actors,” Ritchie said. “I just
felt as though I should just raise the game a little.”
 Photos from Screen Gems "Snatch" opens this Friday,
staring Brad Pitt as Mickey O’Neil.
Similar to “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels,”
“Snatch” takes place in the sleazy gangster dealings of
London’s underworld. From a botched diamond heist to illegal
boxing matches, there is plenty of murder and mayhem to go around.
Ritchie wrote the grim comedy of errors with actual gangsters in
mind.
Living in London for 30 years, the director said he got glimpses
of the underbelly of society.
“I was always caught by the size of their personalities
and the fact that they were such actors,” Ritchie said.
“I just felt it was a film already in the making within these
characters.”
Although the film’s cast of shady characters are humorous
exaggerations, some of their violent antics are based on real life
scenarios. After “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking
Barrels” came out, Ritchie was randomly approached by
gangsters who wanted to share their own anecdotes. In fact, while
attending a British soccer game, he picked up an idea for
“Snatch.”
“This guy sat next to me and started telling me the most
efficient way of getting rid of bodies and it wasn’t laying
them under roads,” Ritchie said. “For the guys that
really had to get rid of a lot of bodies, there was nothing like
the pig farm because the only evidence left was fingernails, teeth
and hair.”
Ritchie’s colleagues were glad he could spend more time
researching than concentrating on the film’s budget. Vinnie
Jones, who plays hitman Bullet Tooth Tony, thinks Ritchie has
definitely grown between his two movies.
“Confidence was the main thing,” Jones said.
“On “˜Lock, Stock,’ we’d be working on a
Monday and we didn’t know if we were working tomorrow. We
didn’t know if the money was there.”
Although Ritchie invited several chums from “Lock,
Stock” to appear in “Snatch,” he did make them
jump through a few hoops.
“He made me audition for it,” said Jason Statham,
who plays Turkish, a struggling boxing promoter. “I had to
assure him I was right for the job.”
The large, mostly male, ensemble cast bonded quickly off-camera.
Though lots of games and pranks occurred, Ritchie tried to run a
tight ship. He even enforced a fine system for being late, having
mobile phones or taking naps during shooting.
Ironically, he paid hefty fines for constantly being late. But
Jones attributes this to the fact that the director was in
love.
From a middle class family, Ritchie grew up in London’s
West End. Born with dyslexia, he didn’t learn to properly
read or write until he was 15-years-old. But Ritchie never saw his
disability as a cause for sympathy.
“I’ve got a perverse perspective on this,”
Ritchie said. “I sort of quite like being the underdog. I
think that creates a hunger which is necessary “¦ If
you’re a kid and you’ve got things going against you,
you’ve just got to realize that what goes against you is
someday going to go for you.”
FILM: “Snatch” opens this Friday in
theaters nationwide.